Your license is your livelihood. Your coverage should protect both.
Medical malpractice is one of the most complex, high-stakes lines of coverage in the insurance market — and one of the most commonly misunderstood.
The wrong policy form, an incorrect retroactive date, a gap in tail coverage, or a policy that wasn’t built for your specialty can leave you exposed to uncovered liability years after a claim-free career. Most healthcare providers don’t find out their coverage was wrong until a claim is already filed. By then, it’s too late.
At Avanti Group, we don’t treat medical malpractice like a commodity renewal. Before we build any submission, we run a Business Risk Diagnostic™ — mapping your actual exposure, auditing your current coverage structure, and making sure your policy reflects your specialty, your practice model, and your real risk profile. Not last year’s assumptions.
Who We Work With
We place medical malpractice coverage for a wide range of healthcare providers and facilities across Iowa and the Midwest, including:
- Physicians and surgeons (all specialties)
- Dentists and oral surgeons
- Nurse practitioners and physician assistants
- Mental and behavioral health professionals
- Physical, occupational, and speech therapists
- Chiropractors and naturopathic physicians
- Certified registered nurse anesthetists (CRNAs)
- Allied health and ancillary providers
- Medical group practices and partnerships
- Outpatient and ambulatory surgical centers
- Urgent care and telehealth providers
- Hospital-employed and independent practitioners
What Medical Malpractice Insurance Covers
Medical malpractice insurance — also called professional liability insurance for healthcare providers — protects you against claims alleging a negligent act, error, or omission in the delivery of professional medical services. Coverage typically includes:
- Legal defense costs — attorney fees, expert witnesses, court costs, and related expenses, regardless of whether the claim has merit
- Settlements and judgments — damages awarded to a claimant up to your policy limits
- Licensing board proceedings — defense costs related to complaints filed against your professional license
- Deposition and subpoena coverage — costs incurred when you’re called as a witness in a related proceeding
The Coverage Detail That Most Providers Miss
Medical malpractice policies come in two fundamentally different forms — and understanding the difference is not optional.
Claims-Made Policies only cover claims filed while the policy is active and while the alleged incident falls within the policy’s retroactive date. If you cancel or switch carriers without purchasing tail coverage (an extended reporting endorsement), claims filed after the policy ends — even for incidents that occurred years ago — will not be covered.
Occurrence Policies cover any incident that happened during the policy period, regardless of when the claim is filed. They carry no tail requirement, but they are harder to find and typically more expensive.
The gap most providers don’t know they have: when switching carriers or retiring, tail coverage is often overlooked or underpriced. A claim filed two years after a patient encounter — with no tail in place — is an uncovered claim.
We walk every client through this conversation before we ever talk about pricing.
Coverage Options We Help With
- Individual physician and surgeon malpractice
- Group practice and multi-provider policies
- Dentist and oral surgeon professional liability
- Allied health and mid-level provider coverage
- Tail coverage / extended reporting endorsements
- Prior acts coverage when switching carriers
- Locum tenens and moonlighting coverage
- Telehealth professional liability
- Facility and ambulatory surgical center coverage
- CRNA and anesthesia professional liability
- Employed vs. independent contractor coverage structures
- Excess and umbrella layers over primary malpractice
How to Get Started
Medical malpractice is not a policy you want shopped on price alone. The form, the carrier’s claims-handling reputation, the retroactive date, and the defense structure all matter — often more than the premium.To get started, call our office or use the button below. We’ll schedule a conversation, review your current coverage structure, and let you know if there are gaps worth addressing before we ever build a quote.