Approximately 7.6 million individuals currently receive care from 83,000 Home Health Care Providers in the U.S. today. The need for home health care providers is growing due to acute illness, long-term health conditions, permanent disability, and terminal illness. If you are just starting your home health care agency or if you have been in business for years there are critical items that you should be looking for in your insurance coverage.
The first concern is why it is necessary to have coverage and at such high limits? Well the issue is that many states require you as a home health care provider to carry coverage for your license. Also, it offers you protection from claims that may not have any merit but that are brought against you. Your clients may perceive negligence on your part even though you have done nothing wrong. These claims can be very costly to defend so make sure your policy provides defense cost before you purchase it.
Many policies provide defense cost, but they can be very different. Some include defense cost within the limit of liability and others outside the limit. If the costs are included in the limit this will reduce the amount that your policy will be able to respond to in the event of a judgment against you. The best situation is to have your defense cost outside your policy limit.
Another issue you should understand is that most policies for home health care providers are written on a ?Claims Made Basis?. That means that the date of the incident and the date that it is reported must be during the in force policy period. This can be very confusing and you should always make sure that you understand the reporting requirements and periods that are required by your insurance carrier.
Your agent will be able to assist with this. It is also possible to purchase ?Tail? coverage that will extend the reporting period for an additional premium charge.
Many people who are new to ?Claims Made? policies don?t understand that they will increase in premium each year during the first few years. This is because the likelihood of a claim being reported increases as time goes by. So you should expect the cost to increase for the first 5 years or so till the policy hits its ?mature? level. It will normally flatten out at that time.
There are many factors that should be investigated when purchasing insurance for your home health care agency. Make sure you have a competent well experienced agent to guide you through the process and point out all the potential pitfalls.
Source: http://www.1directory.net/health-fitness/insurance-for-home-health-care-providers-5537.html
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