In an exciting collaboration between Minet Malawi, Britam, and The Daily Times - Malawi's leading newspaper - we are thrilled to introduce a groundbreaking initiative that will redefine your Wednesdays. Welcome to the Insurance Insights Column – a weekly rendezvous with the world of insurance and contemporary issues that matter. Every article aims to illuminate the intricate landscape of insurance products and relevant topics that impact us all. The articles are educative at all levels, catering to both practitioners and non-practitioners.
As published in The Daily Times (Malawi) on November 13th, 2024
In Latin, there is a dictum that says, ‘humanum est errare,’ translated in English as ‘to err is human.’ Does this sound too academic to be true? It may be hard to believe, but seriously, everyone, [man or woman, black or white, democrat or puludzu], makes a mistake. However, making mistakes should not be an excuse to deny clients of quality work and good ethics of one’s profession.
The society we live in is becoming more litigious. You can be sued for making a minor mistake or silly statement about someone or giving wrong advice to customers.
Just recently, the social media, in Malawi, was awash with articles by comrades in a certain noble profession soiling each other’s image and threatening each other with lawsuits. You may have also read about doctors who accidentally forget forceps in the patient’s stomach during surgical treatment.
How much, dear reader, do you think it would cost to demolish, remove debris, redesign, retender and reconstruct a forty-floor skyscraper that upon completion, is certified unfit for business occupation due to poor workmanship? Your guess is as good as mine. Such things have happened before elsewhere and can happen in our country. It is an expensive exercise.
Professional indemnity insurance protects specialists against claims for damages for breach of professional duty due to negligent act, error, mistake or omission. I prefer referring to it as malpractice insurance. Cover is offered to two sets of professionals – those exposed to risk of causing bodily injury, such as doctors and those who due to wrong advice may cause financial loss, such as lawyers, insurers, bankers, pension administrators, et cetera.
One of the salient features of insurable risks is that its occurrence should be accidental. Deliberate actions that lead to death or loss of property are excluded.
However, under professional indemnity insurance, a professional is not only covered for events that are accidental in cause. Work that a professional often carries out entails acts that are deliberate in nature. These acts may have an unintended result and not necessarily accidental.
Take a case of a pharmacist. If the learned fellow prescribes a patient a tonic of concoction for relief of stomach upset and it turns out that the concoction gives the patient terrible allergic reactions, such as removing hair on their body [that sounds pretty imaginative, but it is an important point]. Certainly, the result is unintended, but the act of prescribing and selling the concoction was deliberate. In the event of a lawsuit from the patient, the pharmacist’s professional indemnity insurance will admit the claim.
I have a warning to womenfolk - if you are promised by a beautician that the make-up they recommend for you will work, but instead chars your beautiful face, producing terrible pimples, the beautician’s claim cannot succeed. The policy responds only to claims arising out of mistake, error, omission or malpractice in discharging the service for which one is employed as a professional. It does not cover warranty of guarantee for successful results. Nope. Professional indemnity insurance does not guarantee performance of product or service.
One is allowed to present a claim in any year after expiry of one’s policy. One is not mandated to lodge a claim in the current insurance period. Professional indemnity policy is provided on what insurance people call claims made basis.
Professional indemnity insurance does not only cover against bodily injury. Perils such as libel, slander, mental anguish, wrongful arrest or false imprisonment are covered as long as they result from professional acts.
If a social media blogger writes something that is in bad taste as far as one is concerned, one is at liberty to sue the blogger for defamation as we witnessed in Malawi social media a couple of weeks ago. Insurance people refer to it as defamation liability.
Views from the top are that the best way to tide over professional malpractices is to arrange a professional indemnity insurance. Talk to us. We are here to guide and serve.
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