In a time of increasing costs and diminishing rewards we know that it is important to you to keep your costs down wherever possible. Healthman has therefore been instructed to investigate alternatives and make recommendation in this regard.
Glenrand MIB Professional Services (a Division of Glenrand MIB Ltd) was founded more that 20 years ago to provide specialist expertise in the field of Professional Indemnity Insurance. Today they are the provider of professional indemnity and medical malpractice insurance to several major healthcare associations.
The Glenrand M.I.B Medical Malpractice Practitioners Scheme in association with HealthMan offers you:
1. Medical malpractice and professional indemnity insurance at highly competitive premiums in which the VAT portion of the premium is reclaimable from the Receiver of Revenue.
2. Secure legal contracts
3. Retro-active cover (conditions apply).
4. 3 years free run-off cover (after termination of your Glenrand cover).
5. Medico-legal advice on a toll-free helpline.
6. Leading law firms to assist with litigation.
7. Cover for employees within the professional’s employment.
8. Contractually guaranteed limits of Indemnity offered depending on your personalized risk.
9. An option is available to pay premiums in monthly installments.
10. Handling of complaints/provision of legal representation at HPCSA inquiries.
11. Continuing cover with no further premium being payable when you cease to practice or retire.
12. There is no excess or deductible payable under the policy.
13. Cover for claims for defamation (which must have been committed by the client in good faith in the course and scope of professional activities) and cover for liability arising out of employee dishonesty.
Please note that:
- Cover runs in 12 month cycles (from entry date) and can not be terminated during a cycle.
- Glenrand employs a claims made policy (eg. If you had cover before joining, your claim will be entertained by Glenrand if it is a new claim). If you had no previous cover you can buy the retro-active cover.
PRODUCTS & PUBLIC LIABILITY - COMPULSORY (INCL IN THE QUOTED PREMIUM) | | Public Liability Limit R1.0M Per Claim and R1.0M Per Policy Period. | | | | Products Liability Limit R1.0M Per Claim and "Included in the PL Policy Period Limit shown above" Per Policy Period. | | Deductible R5000 / PL and R10,000 Products. | | | | Additional Annual Premium R250.00 per insured practitioner. | | | | Applicable to all the highlighted disciplines enclosed ( Approx 800 practitioners ). | | | All highlighted Practitioners must purchase the cover - it is not optional. | | | | | | | | | Work overseas | 20% loading fee on current premium | | | | Locum | 20% discount according to category | | quote from Glenrand | | Cosmetic treatment | 20% loading fee on current premium | | |
Because of the stringent regulations requiring Financial Services Board (FSB) accreditation and registration the review and work will be done by Prosper Financial Services (a subsidiary of HealthMan)
| comparison between mps and glenrand |
| GLENRAND MIB | | MEDICAL PROTECTION SOCIETY | | COMPETITIVE PREMIUMS | | Glenrand MIB’s premiums remain more competitive than the MPS’s have ever been. MPS alleges that if you do your calculations, MPS cover works out less expensive over the long run. Over the years our premiums have consistently remained lower than theirs. The only time the MPS’s allegations would be true, ie that they are the cheaper option, would be if you decided that you wished to return to the MPS before retirement. The MPS has indicated that you would have to pay double premiums to them to cover the period you were not with them. This is a cost issue relating to the MPS, not Glenrand MIB. Should you keep your cover with Glenrand MIB, you stand to make significant savings that could amount to 10’s of thousands of Rands. | | DIFFERENCE BETWEEN CLAIMS-MADE & CLAIM OCCURRING COVER | | The MPS used to base this “more expensive in the long-term” argument on the basis that their cover is “claims-occurring”, whilst our cover is “claims-made”. We have a number of responses to this argument but before responding, it is necessary to understand the terms:
Claims-occurring: This is a method of determining whether a loss falls within the cover of an insurance policy. Losses (or incidents giving rise to losses) arising during the period when a policy is in force are covered irrespective of when the claim is submitted.
Claims-made: This is also a method of determining whether a loss falls within the cover of an insurance policy. The insurer is responsible for losses/claims notified (made) during the policy period irrespective of when the incident giving rise to the claim/loss occurred. This is limited by the practitioners’ retro-active cover date. | MPS COVER IS DISCRETIONARY
3 YEARS FREE RUN-OFF COVER
3 YEAR”S PRESCRIPTION PERIOD
PRESCRIPTION DOES NOT RUN AGAINST MINORS
NOTIFICATION OF INCIDENTS | | With this understanding in place, our responses to allegations that MPS cover works out less expensive in the long run would be as follows:
- 1. MPS does not provide an insurance policy, so it cannot really refer to its cover as being “claims-made” or “claims-occurring”. MPS states in its membership booklet that its cover is DISCRETIONARY. This means that the MPS does not have to provide any cover at all in the event of a claim and although you may have faithfully paid your premiums all along, should the MPS decide that it did not want to assist you, you would not have any legal recourse against the MPS because their cover is DISCRETIONARY. Glenrand MIB does provide you with an insurance policy which is a legally binding contract. You would therefore have legal recourse should you ever require it, if you believed that your policy should pay out and it was failing to do so.
- Should you decide to cease your cover with Glenrand MIB for whatever reason, so long as you have paid your full annual premium and you notify us that you wish to cease your policy as from your renewal date, you will enjoy 3 year’s free run-off cover. This basically means that after terminating your policy, you still have 3 years within which to report any claims that may be made against you for services rendered whilst you had your indemnity cover through Glenrand MIB.
In terms of South African Law, the majority of claims prescribe after 3 years from the date of harm suffered or from the date of knowledge that harm has been suffered. This means that the person who has suffered the loss basically “loses” the right to sue after 3 years.
Therefore if any claim is going to be made, it will, in the majority of cases, be made within three years from the date of the loss-causing event or knowledge that loss has been suffered.
There are exceptions to the prescription rule eg, prescription does not run against a minor until they reach the age of majority.
It might be argued that this means that because our cover is “claims-made”, if a doctor who has treated minors while holding cover with us, wishes to leave our cover, he will be forced to continue paying premiums to us hence the MPS’s argument that our cover would be more expensive in the long run.
This argument is fallacious. You do not have to wait for a formal claim to be made before notifying us of an adverse incident or event. We have no doubt that in most cases if you treat a minor, you would know if there was an adverse incident (whether as a result of negligence or not) which might give rise to a claim against you in the future. You would then notify us immediately and any claim that then arose would be covered no matter how far into the future it might arise. We actually encourage all of our practitioners to rather be safe than sorry and report every incident to us, even if they think nothing will come of it. This is just good risk management practice no matter which indemnity provider you are with!
- As with the MPS, we also offer free continuing cover when you retire or cease to practice (unless you have been removed from your professional body’s roll of practitioners due to misconduct, etc). This continuing cover also provides cover for your estate in the event of your death.
- If you stay with us for the duration of your cover – you would effectively enjoy exactly the same type of cover being offered by MPS, i.e “claims-occurring” – but we offer it to you at far more competitive premiums. Over the period of your career, this obviously works out to substantial savings totaling 10s if not 100s of thousands of Rands – for the same cover!
ADDITIONAL BENEFITS WITH GLENRAND MIBDEFAMATION
We cover you if you are sued for defamation.
VICARIOUS LIABILITY FOR EMPLOYEES
We cover you if you are sued on the basis of vicarious liability for the negligent actions or omissions of your employees which is defined in our policy wording as including trainees, locums and consultants.
With regard to this issue, the MPS member’s handbook states:
“Although your MPS membership does not extend to indemnity for your liability for your staff in general, we may make an exception in the case of claims of negligence against certain employees, such as secretaries and properly qualified and appropriately registered nurses, provided they were acting under your personal supervision and within the scope of their defined duties and professional expertise when the incident occurred.
Please ensure that they do act at all times within the scope of their employment, since any wider activity would not attract an indemnity.
”EMPLOYEES DISHONESTY
We cover you for claims arising out of your employees’ dishonesty. As far as we are aware, the MPS does not offer this cover.
SOUTHERN AFRICA
We cover you for services rendered in Namibia, Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland at no additional cost.
LOCUMS
We offer a 20% discount on your category premium if you are acting solely as a locum.
LIMITED PRIVATE WORK
We offer special rates for limited private income.
BOTOX WORK
We offer cover for all Botox, etc type work for a 20% loading on your annual premium with no restrictions of your chosen limit of indemnity.
WORKING ABROAD
We offer cover for up to one year’s work abroad for a 20% loading on your annual premium with no restriction of your chosen limit of indemnity.
WORLDWIDE COVER
Our cover is worldwide excluding USA and Canada.
VAT REFUNDABLE
You can reclaim the VAT portion of your premium back from the Receiver of Revenue if you are a VAT vendor.
Glenrand MIB Professional Services is a Division of Glenrand MIB Ltd and was founded more than 20 years ago to provide specialist expertise in the field of professional indemnity insurance. Today we are the providers of professional indemnity and medical malpractice to several major healthcare associations and hospitals as well as individual healthcare practitioners.
MPS has been around for longer than Glenrand MIB with regard to the provision of medical malpractice indemnity. But we are no new-comer.
We have all the experience, know-how and infrastructure to provide you with the necessary peace of mind when you place your cover us.We plan to be here. There was a lot of opportunistic scare-mongering when the St Paul Company pulled out of its medical malpractice activities in South Africa. We had already arranged alternative cover for our clients through the Admiral Underwriting Agency on behalf of Santam Limited, a leading local insurer. Therefore our client’s cover was never in jeopardy as has falsely been alleged. We also “rescued” ex-Proton members.We all know that the MDU pulled out of South Africa. The MPS has also pulled out of
members was then transferred to united Medical Protection, another “friendly society”. United, which provided indemnity for more than 30 000 doctors at the time, applied to be placed in liquidation in 2002). |
| Application form | | Click here to view the GLENRAND M.I.B MEDICAL MALPRACTICE INDEMNITY APPLICATION FORM |
| Payment method | | Click here for the payment method form |
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