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What Health and Care Services Insurance Covers
Health and care services insurance covers the treatment, the care, the premises, the data and the staff of businesses that look after people: medical clinics, mental health services, aged care and supported residential services, disability support providers, and physiotherapy and allied health practices. The people they serve are often elderly, unwell or vulnerable, and the law and the insurers treat that seriously.
The claims follow the care. A patient or a resident falls. A treatment goes wrong, or a care plan is not followed and someone is hurt. A client or a family member claims. A worker is injured lifting a resident. A clinic's buildings, equipment and medical devices are damaged by fire, storm or water, and appointments stop. And these businesses hold personal and health information, the most sensitive data there is.
Clinicians carry their own registration and professional indemnity requirements, and the organisation carries liability for the premises, the staff and the service as a whole. Aged care, supported residential services and disability providers answer to their regulators and funding bodies, and a breach of health records is notifiable under the privacy law. Public liability insurance for the premises is the one every provider holds.
Fortis Risk Solutions arranges health and care services insurance for providers across Australia from offices in Box Hill and Hawthorn, as part of our business insurance range. We look at the services delivered, the registrations held, the client group and the premises before approaching insurers. The professional side starts with professional indemnity insurance; the organisation adds the sections below.
Who this covers
Care services share a duty of care and differ in how it is delivered. The notes below set out each type.
Medical clinics
General practice, specialist suites and day procedures. Professional indemnity for the practice entity alongside each practitioner’s own cover, public liability for the premises, cyber cover for patient records and business interruption for the fees that stop after damage.
Mental health services
Psychologists, counsellors and support programs. Professional indemnity for treatment and advice, public liability for the rooms, cyber cover for sensitive records, and a wording that responds to claims involving self-harm and duty of care.
Aged care and supported residential services facilities
Residential care with regulators, funding bodies and vulnerable residents. Professional indemnity and public liability written for residential care, abuse liability, property for the facility, management liability for the board and business interruption set on funding and fees.
Disability support services
Support delivered in homes, in the community and in centres. Public liability and professional indemnity written for support work, abuse liability, commercial motor with passenger liability for client transport, and cover that meets the national scheme’s requirements.
Physiotherapy and allied health
Hands-on treatment, exercise programs and equipment. Professional indemnity for the practice and the practitioners, public liability for the rooms and the equipment, and cyber cover for patient records. Mobile practitioners need cover that travels with them.
Health and Care Services Insurance: Cover Sections and Benefits
Health and Care Services Insurance FAQs
Professional indemnity for the practitioners and for the practice entity, because a clinician's personal policy does not always cover the business that employs them. Public liability for the premises. A business insurance package for the fit-out, the equipment and the fee income lost after damage. Cyber cover for patient records. Workers compensation is compulsory for every employer and sits separately.
Public liability and professional indemnity written for care services, including support delivered in clients' homes and in the community. Funding bodies and the national scheme set minimum requirements, and insurers ask about worker screening, incident management and the client group. Providers transporting clients need commercial motor insurance with passenger liability, and most need abuse liability cover, which many standard policies exclude.
As a care business and a property business at once. The building, the fit-out and the equipment sit under property cover; the care itself under professional indemnity and public liability written for residential care; the directors and the regulatory exposure under management liability. Business interruption insurance is set on the funding and the fees that stop if residents have to be relocated after damage.
Under a cyber insurance section, yes. It pays for the investigation, the legal and privacy advice, the notifications the Notifiable Data Breaches scheme requires, system restoration and the income lost while the practice cannot run its systems. Health information attracts the highest scrutiny from the regulator, so a provider without cyber cover is carrying that cost alone.
Usually not fully. A doctor's or a physiotherapist's personal professional indemnity covers that practitioner. The clinic as an entity can be sued for its own failures: rostering, supervision, equipment, reception advice, referrals and the conduct of unregistered staff. A practice entity policy fills that gap, and we check the two wordings together so nothing falls between them.
Care wordings turn on the client group, the services declared, abuse liability, worker screening conditions and how home and community care is treated. FRS helps you disclose the services and the registrations accurately, structure limits to meet funding body requirements, compare insurers who write care risk and act as your advocate when a claim or an investigation arrives.
Related pages
Related industry groups: Community, Education and Public Sector Insurance, Professional Services Insurance, Events and Entertainment Insurance
Talk to a broker about Health and Care Services Insurance
Call 03 7046 3766 on weekdays between 9:30am and 6pm, email admin@fortisrisksolutions.com.au, or send an enquiry and a broker from our Box Hill or Hawthorn office will come back to you about health and care services insurance. Tell us what the business does and what the lease or contract asks for, and we take it from there.