Professional Indemnity Insurance

The IIRRT have organised a professional indemnity insurance scheme, which is made available to all our members at a discounted rate and can be combined into your monthly / yearly subscription fee.

Professional indemnity insurance provides cover from potential threats, such as claims for alleged negligence or breach of duty arising from an act, error or omission in the performance of professional services. These are potential causes for legal action that would not be covered by a more general liability insurance policy which addresses more direct forms of harm. Failure to have Professional Indemnity Insurance may expose individuals to the risk of being sued for all types of claims such as: libel, slander, and breach of confidentiality and professional neglect. This insurance also helps protect individuals from bearing the full cost of defending against a negligence claim made by a patient / service user, and damages awarded in such a civil lawsuit.

Policy details

2011: Cornmarket Insurers policy

2012: Glennon Insurance policy and members letter

2013: WR Berkely

Please note that to keep costs to a minimum the insurance policy details will only be distributed via email to members and will be available within the members area of the website also.

IMPORTANT COMMUNICATION FOR IIRRT INSURANCE HOLDERS

The IIRRT have changed insurance brokers and will be changing insurers in January 2012 in an effort to reduce the insurance premium paid by each member. The existing policy cover will not change. The exact cost of the insurance premium has yet to be agreed but we are expecting a reduction in the order of 35%. The IIRRT would like to bring the below notice to your attention.

The membership of the IIRRT work in the Public Sector / HSE, some major private hospitals and in a small number of situations small private facilities / clinics. The Institute have discussed this with our insurance brokers who have advised us as follows –

• In no circumstances should individual IIRRT members sign any agreements / indemnities with their employers that create a liability for that member that goes beyond their normal activities and duties.
• The IIRRT Group Insurance policy excludes the provision of medical advice and the administration of drugs (with the exception of contrast agents, radiopharmaceuticals and Lasix for nuclear renogram studies). This is the responsibility of clinicians who are insured separately.
• For those of you working in the major private hospital facilities such facilities will carry their own insurance that should protect any IIRRT member but it is important not to sign any indemnities without taking advice.
• For those of you working exclusively in the public system the Clinical Indemnity Scheme operates and this is not an issue.

We are aware that some smaller private facilities / clinics may ask IIRRT members working there to provide open ended indemnities. If this is the case IIRRT strongly advise members in this situation to contact us. You cannot assume that the IIRRT Group Insurance policy will automatically apply in such circumstances.

For any members that may have concerns in this regard please submit your queries to us at info@iirrt.ie and these will be passed to our insurance brokers for advice and response.

What to do in the event of a potential claim?

As a condition of the insurance policy all policy holding members must IMMEDIATELY notify the insurers of any claim or potential claim against them. The insurers should be contacted directly and details of the (potential) claim need to be supplied, such as date of such act, purported error or omission or event, persons involved etc. The insurers will then appoint some one to directly handle the claim on your behalf.