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Study Says Malpractice Payouts Aren't Rising
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Issue
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| Contributor | RP |
| Last Edited | RP Jul 07, 2005 12:18pm |
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| Category | Study |
| Media | Newspaper - New York Times |
| News Date | Thursday, July 7, 2005 06:00:00 PM UTC0:0 |
| Description | When Mike Kreidler was an optometrist in Olympia, Wash., he railed against trial lawyers. He believed that aggressive trial lawyers were the reason he faced rising insurance premiums.
Dr. Kreidler, now in his second term as Washington State's insurance commissioner, has changed his mind. He has decided that the problem is not the lawyers - although they have contributed - but also the insurance companies.
A study to be released today by the Center for Justice and Democracy, a consumer advocacy group in New York, may add fuel to that debate. The study, compiled from regulatory filings by insurers to state regulators, finds that net claims for medical malpractice paid by 15 leading insurance companies have remained flat over the last five years, while net premiums have surged 120 percent.
From 2000 to 2004, the increase in premiums collected by the leading 15 medical malpractice insurance companies was 21 times the increase in the claims they paid, according to the study. (The net totals in the study are calculated after accounting for reinsurance.)
"In recent years, medical malpractice hasn't been unprofitable but it's been phenomenally profitable," said Jay Angoff, the former state insurance commissioner of Missouri and a consultant on the study. |
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