Malpractice Insurance Will Get You Sued

Lots of nurses will not get malpractice insurance because they have been told that having malpractice insurance will get a nurse sued. WRONG!!!

Plaintiffs (the people suing) will not know initially whether a nurse has malpractice insurance or not unless the nurse voluntarily informs the potential plaintiff that the nurse has malpractice insurance. The decision on whom to name in a lawsuit is not based on whether potential defendants (the nurse being sued) have malpractice insurance or not. Whether a nurse has insurance is not even found out until after the lawsuit has been filed and the parties are in the discovery phase of the lawsuit.

Note however that having malpractice insurance might keep a nurse in a lawsuit. Some attorneys will keep a defendant in a lawsuit if the defendant has insurance to pay for potential settlements or judgments. In the past, not having insurance benefited nurses because attorneys would drop nurses out of a lawsuit because the nurses did not have "deep" pockets and did not typically have malpractice insurance. So, if there was not much money available the nurse was dismissed. Now, many attorneys will not dismiss any defendants from a lawsuit if there is potential to get any amount of money from them (plus nurses are being paid much better now).

So, malpractice insurance will not get a nurse sued. Nurses should purchase their own malpractice insurance policy with a license defense rider.