When considering what type of medical indemnity to get, bear in mind that adverse incidents may not come to light until many months or years after your contact with a patient. This makes it very different to the types of insurance you may be more familiar with, such as for your car or house.

Your car or house insurance is likely to be on a claims-made basis. This means that you can request assistance providing that request is made during the time of your policy. This model generally works well for car insurance, as you're likely to know immediately if you've crashed your car.

Medical indemnity and insurance are also sometimes offered on a claims-made basis. An incident could occur during your claims-made period, but the patient is not yet aware of a problem incurred with treatment, and so no claim is made at the time.

This means that once a claims-made period comes to an end, you'll need to arrange and pay for additional 'run-off' so that you have the necessary clinical negligence indemnity or insurance for incidents that have already occurred, but where the problem is yet to come to light.

In contrast, occurrence-based membership with the MDU means you have the reassurance that you can ask for our assistance as long as you are (or were) an MDU member at the time the incident happened. This applies even if you're no longer a member, have retired or stopped practising. Your estate can ask for our help even after your death.

See our member guide or contact our membership team to find out more.

Professional indemnity

Frequently asked questions