Reform required to control liability premiums: Senate must act now

Without tort reform, historically high medical liability insurance rates will continue to drive physicians out of practice.

Editorial. Nov. 21, 2005.

Usually when a market shows signs of stabilization, it's a good thing. But if you're an ob-gyn in Dade County, Fla., paying $299,420 annually for medical liability insurance, or an internist in Cook County, Ill., paying $65,887 annually, there's not much cause for celebration.

According to the 15th annual Medical Liability Monitor rate survey, released in October, liability premiums did level in 2005. In fact, more than 81% of liability insurance executives surveyed agreed with that statement.

The data -- which were gathered through a poll that asked insurance companies what premium they were charging July 1 for their mature claims-made manual insurance rates with limits of $1 million/$3 million for ob-gyns, internists and general surgeons -- showed that about 34% of the reported rates were unchanged or had declined since last year.

It also revealed that the majority of rate increases in 2005 were between 0% and 14.8%. That's better than last year, when half of the rate changes were between 6.9% and 24.9%. And on top of that, only 8% of the reported increases were 25% or higher this year. That's markedly down from the 25% of increases that hit that level in 2004 and the 33% that fell into that category in 2003.

Although that is positive news for doctors who did enjoy those perks, the rates didn't level off for everyone. And where they are leveling off, they're often doing so at historically high levels.

In addition to the high rates in parts of Florida and Illinois, some ob-gyns, general surgeons and internists in North Carolina saw a 78% increase when their insurance bills arrived in the mail, the survey showed. That translated to some internists paying $22,418 this year, compared with $12,593 a year ago. It pushed ob-gyns and general surgeons' rates to nearly $95,000.