Doctor? Not having Professional Indemnity is like jumping off without a parachute.".

Professional indemnity (PI) can be defined as an insurance policy that covers financial protection to professionals against claims made by clients or third parties for alleged negligence, errors, or omissions in the course of their work.

In usual circumstances the professional indemnity is equivalent to price of the product. Let’s say you hire a person for some work and if he doesn’t do his work properly then the consumer is entitled to get back his amount. In case of consumer goods the consumer protection forums will ordinarily order the product to be replaced. So the person providing services (such as plumber or electrician etc ) or selling goods (electronic shop etc) is either at risk of loosing the amount he charged for service or the price of product.

But unfortunately, in cases of practising doctors there is no such limit to the amount of compensation. For the same mistake a doctor can be made to pay 1 lac and another doctor may have to pay 100 crores. It depends upon varius factor. For example, in case of death of a patient the consumer courts will take into consideration the amount the deceased was earning multiplied by the months of remaining ordinary life. So the amount slapped on doctors will be entirely different in cases involving a person who was earning ten thousand rupees per month and a person who was earning 10 lac rupees per month.

This is particularly important in cases of radiologist because they give reports which can be used as documentary evidence. If they miss a congenital anomaly in TIFFA scan then they are likely to be slapped with fines which will be very heavy because in these cases the courts are likely to take into consideration the whole life such a baby will have to lead. In addition to the compromised life of such a child mental agony of the parents for having such a child is also taken into consideration by courts.

In recent case the Hon NCRDC have slapped a fine of 1.25 crore to a radiologist (Read the details here)

 Since there is no upper limit for fine which can be imposed upon doctors and because all such cases have an element of sympathy for patients it is risky and a practicing doctor can not take risk of not having a professional indemnity. Think about situation of a doctor who is earning 1-2 lacs per month and he is slapped with 1 crore fine.

That will be end of his career a well as life. To save yourself from such a fate always have a professional indemnity insurance which comes on a very affordable yearly charges of anywhere between 10-15 k . These insurance companies will not only pay fine charges but they will also look after the court cases ig any such unfortunate thing happens with you.  That will give you a cover regarding all such cases.