Cautious optimism greets second year of stable, lower liability premiums

Doctors warn that insurance rates are still extremely high in some areas and that courts could overturn recent tort reforms.

By Amy Lynn Sorrel, AMNews staff. Dec. 17, 2007.

For the second straight year, medical liability insurance rates are easing nationwide, with nearly 84% of company-reported rates holding steady or dropping in 2007. That's according to the latest Medical Liability Monitor survey, the largest of its kind to track how much insurance carriers charge physicians.

The report showed that more than half of premiums -- 53% -- did not change. That's up from 47% of companies reporting that result in 2006. Another 31% of rates inched downward -- 34% more than last year and roughly triple the number of decreases in 2005.

While those signs show things are looking up, doctors and insurance executives were quick to note that they are not out of the woods just yet, because premiums in many areas of the country remain sky-high.

"The good news is the cliff you are dangling from is two feet lower. The bad news is it's still a 200-foot drop," said American Medical Association Board of Trustees member Robert M. Wah, MD.

For instance, Illinois physicians in 2007 saw some of the largest double-digit rate decreases at around 50%. But some internists, general surgeons and ob-gyns in Cook County still pay among the highest rates in the nation at $50,464, $127,083 and $178,291, respectively. Florida had the highest rates in those three specialties. Some general surgeons and ob-gyns there spent $275,466 in 2007, also despite cuts. The Monitor asked major carriers to report their manual rates as of July 1 for mature claims-made policies with limits of $1 million/$3 million for the three specialties.