The Undersecretariat of the Treasury has announced that an insurance pool is to be established to cover medical liability.
The medical malpractice indemnity pool is formed following reports that several doctors in Turkey were postponing risky surgery because they were unhappy with moves made by insurers to bundle other insurance products with medical liability insurance which is a loss-making business.
In a new regulation issued in early September, the Undersecretariat of the Treasury said that the pool is established “in order to overcome the problems arising from the regulation on compulsory financial liability insurance for medical malpractice”.
According to the regulation, the pool will be managed by Günes Sigorta, which has a licence for general liability insurance business. The structure of the new pool is similar to that established in July for mandatory motor third party liability insurance for high-risk vehicles.
Setting out the working principles for the pool, the new regulation said that the sharing of premiums and claims paid among insurers in the medical indemnity insurance pool is calculated in two parts. Under the model, 50% of the pool will be based on the market share of motor insurers in the last three years. The remaining 50% is distributed equally among the insurers. For a start, the share will be calculated based on the traffic insurance premiums for the period 1 January 2014 to 30 June 2017. The share will be calculated each year and will remain constant throughout the year.
Compulsory liability insurance for medical malpractice was made mandatory in 2010. However, the premium has remained unchanged for the past seven years, according to local media reports. Over the period, insurers paid more than TRY1 billion (US$292.9 million) in damages, while premiums received totalled TRY338.2 million from doctors.
As the insurance is mandatory, the Treasury has been setting the premium rates and the benefits. Up to last year, insurers were accepting business from doctors. The situation changed this year, with insurers either refusing to sell the insurance, or insisting that the doctors buy other products from them as well, such as personal accident and auto insurance.
In addition, doctors are unhappy that the premiums for medical liability insurance are not linked to the professional track record of the medical practitioner. M
TRY1 = US$0.29