Get the facts

The principle of discretion means having the freedom to decide what should be done in any given situation. The discretionary approach to indemnity gives us the flexibility to help members in situations where a tightly worded insurance contract might rule out help.

We use people, rather than contracts, to decide how best to help. Our medicolegal consultants, specialist lawyers, and cases and claims experts use their insight to determine the right course of action, and bring their experience and understanding to supporting you every step of the way. We are owned by members, so our starting point is always to see how we can help members.

There are two types of professional protection: claims-made and occurrence-based.

• Occurrence-based indemnity – the type Medical Protection provides in Singapore – protects you for incidents that occur during your period of membership, even if a claim related to the incident is not made until years after. Providing you were in membership and paying the correct subscription at the time of an incident that’s given rise to a case or claim, we can protect you even if you’re no longer in membership, or retired. That means you are protected for future claims arising from any year in which you were a member.

• Claims-made indemnity is what insurance policies are usually based on. This type of indemnity protects you for claims related to your practice that arose, and are reported during, a continuous period of membership. This means that if a claim arose outside that period, you would not be able to seek assistance unless you bought ‘run off’ cover (also known as extended reporting benefits). This can be expensive and limited to a set number of years, whereas complaints and claims can arise even decades after the event.

 

While most insurance companies have shareholders to pay, Medical Protection is a member-owned, not-for-profit organisation. This means we exist purely for the benefit of our members.

Because the indemnity we protect you with is discretionary, we have the flexibility to help even in the most unusual circumstances, or where a new problem appears. This is very different to insurance, where policies include fixed terms and exclusions. It is only in exceptional circumstances that we’re unable to help – for example, if a member wasn’t in membership when the incident occurred, had underpaid their subscription or underdeclared their scope of work.

As soon as you can. Unlike some insurers we don’t have to wait until a claim is made to help – if you receive a complaint, for example, our experts can help you prepare the best response in order to prevent the situation escalating. Or if you just need some advice – contact our medicolegal advice team.