Medical Malpractice Insurer Declares Caps on Damages Don't Work [View All]

[Ilsa]

This article is a couple of months old and comes from a consumer watchdog website. I did a DU search and didn't find it on DU.

http://www.consumerwatchdog.org/insurance/pr/pr004692.php3

NEWS RELEASE
Oct 26, 2004

CONTACT: Douglas Heller, [phone] ext. 309

Nation's Largest Medical Malpractice Insurer Declares Caps on Damages Don't Work, Raises Docs' Premiums;

Smoking Gun Document Exposes Insurance Industry Lies
Santa Monica, CA -- The nation's largest medical malpractice insurer, GE Medical Protective, has admitted that medical malpractice caps on damage awards and other limitations on recoveries for injured patients will not lower physicians' premiums.

The insurer's revelation was made to the Texas Department of Insurance (TDI) in a regulatory filing obtained by FTCR. The revelation was contained in a document submitted by GE Medical Protective to explain why the insurer planned to raise physicians' premiums 19% a mere six months after Texas enacted caps on medical malpractice awards. In 2003, Texas lawmakers passed a $250,000 cap on non-economic damage compensation to victims of medical malpractice caps after Medical Protective and other insurers lobbied for the change.

According to the Medical Protective filing: "Non-economic damages are a small percentage of total losses paid. Capping non-economic damages will show loss savings of 1.0%." The company also notes that a provision in the Texas law allowing for periodic payments of awards would provide a savings of only 1.1%. The insurer did not even provide its doctors that relief and eventually imposed a rate hike on its physician policyholders.

SNIP