How each insurance company defines a “claim” is another important consideration when comparing policies.
“Incident reporting” allows the physician to report an adverse outcome to the carrier as a potential claim. This is important because for a claim to be covered under a claims-made policy, the incident must BOTH happen AND be reported as a claim while the policy is in force.
If an insurance company requires that the insured receive a “written demand for damages” in order to consider a claim to be reported – then the physician must wait to be sued before the claim is recognized! This can be a real problem for physicians wishing to change professional liability carriers: Most insurance companies would decline to offer a policy to prospective clients who can expect to be sued in the future for past adverse outcomes. The carriers often consider such a situation to be the same as “buying future claims.”