Malpractice insurance renewal: what to confirm before you sign

Malpractice renewal is the one time a year a practice owner is guaranteed to be looking closely at coverage — worth using that attention fully rather than renewing on autopilot. The gaps that matter most at claim time are rarely dramatic; they’re usually a mismatch between what the policy covers and what the practice actually does.

Claims-made vs. occurrence

Claims-made policies cover claims filed while the policy is active, regardless of when the incident occurred — which means switching insurers or closing a practice without tail coverage can leave past work uninsured against a future claim. Occurrence policies cover incidents that happened during the policy period regardless of when a claim is filed later, eliminating that gap but typically costing more. Practices considering a switch should price tail coverage into the comparison, not just the premium difference.

Limits that match your actual procedure mix

A policy’s per-claim and aggregate limits should reflect the highest-risk procedures actually performed in the practice — a practice that’s added implant placement, sedation, or other higher-liability procedures since the policy was last reviewed may be carrying limits sized for an older, lower-risk procedure mix.

Coverage for associates and hygienists

Confirm whether associate dentists and hygienists are covered under the practice’s policy, carry their own, or some combination — and whether coverage follows the provider or the practice if an associate leaves. This is a common gap discovered only when a claim arises against a provider who’s since left, and no one had confirmed in advance whose policy would respond.

General liability and cyber add-ons

Malpractice covers clinical claims; general liability covers patient slip-and-fall and property damage; a cyber liability add-on increasingly matters given how much patient data now lives in cloud practice management systems. Practices that treat these as a single bundled “insurance” line item without checking each coverage separately are the ones most likely to discover a gap after an incident, not before.

Bottom line: renewal is the moment to confirm policy type, limits matched to current procedure mix, and coverage for every provider in the practice — not just to check the premium against last year’s.