GIG Professional Programs is headquartered in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, and was established for the sole purpose of providing legal malpractice insurance. GIG Professional Program’s success is based on exceeding your expectations and providing superior services so that you can focus on your business. Our reliable, responsive, highly trained, and experienced staff does this in an exceedingly efficient and cost effective manner – more importantly, we work with extreme honesty and integrity!
Most professional liability insurance policies today are written on a claims-made form vs. occurrence form. Under this policy, you are protected for claims that meet two conditions – they must be reported while the coverage is still in force and occur subsequent to the retroactive date (also known as prior acts date). The coverage period of your policy begins with the retroactive date and ends with the cancellation date. An Occurrence policy provides for coverage which occurs during the policy period regardless of when the claim was made. It is very rare for this type of policy to be written by a professional liability carrier.
Assessable insurance carriers reserve the right to charge or “assess” policyholders an additional premium in the event the carrier’s losses exceed premium income. This may occur with trust companies, state insurance and or retention groups. With traditional “stock” companies, your financial obligation begins and ends with your yearly premium – you will never have an assessed fee.
For policies issued with the same effective date and retroactive date, most claims-made policies involve a five to eight-year step rating approach. The first year, the premium is lower, with progressively increasing premiums up to year five or eight to compensate for the longer reporting period. Upon reaching the mature rate, premiums remain level except for Company-wide increases or decreases.
The date current insurance expires or, if not currently insured, the date the firm would like coverage to go into effect, subject to underwriting approval.
Also known as “prior acts date”, is the earliest date that the firm has had continuous claims-made coverage. Some carriers require a specific date on all policies. You may see “full” or “no date limitation applies” on some carriers’ declarations page. If the firm has “full” prior acts coverage from their current carrier, most companies will consider using the same language or use the date the firm was established as the retroactive date. It is important that you verify your retroactive date so that there will be no lapse in coverage. Claims made coverage means coverage for claims resulting from injury occurring after the retroactive date, provided the claim is reported to the carrier while the policy is in force.
Yes. Without retroactive coverage, any professional service rendered prior to the effective date will not be covered. Prior acts coverage is typically available (subject to underwriting) when transferring from another claims-made policy. With this option, you do not have to purchase costly tail coverage from your prior insurance company.
No one can advise you specifically on how much insurance to purchase. There is an array of options available. Single limit options provide one limit that applies to per claim and is also the aggregate (total) limit for the policy period. Split limit options are commonly offered in medical professional liability. As an example, $250,000/$750,000, $500,000/$1,500,000 and $1,000,000/$3,000,000. The first limit denotes the limit amount you have available for any one claim. The second limit denotes the limit amount you have available in the aggregate per policy period. Your insurance company will not pay out more than the aggregate limit in any one year, regardless of the number of claims.
Some carriers allow you to choose between two limit options. If you select Claim Expenses within the limit, your limit of liability will be reduced by damages and/or claim expenses. Or, you may select an Additional Limit for Claim Expenses which provides one limit for damages and another limit for claim expenses.
With a Loss and Expense Deductible you will pay all damages and claim expenses up to the amount of your deductible. A Loss Only Deductible, also known as “First Dollar Defense”, minimizes your out of pocket expenses for frivolous claims. You pay your deductible only if damages are assessed against you.
Loss-free Discounts vary and are based on the number of years without a claim.
Yes. Potential claims or incidents which may give rise to a claim must be reported to the current carrier as well as new carrier. Failure to report the claim under the current claims-made policy could result in uninsured claims thus “self” insuring. No coverage will be provided by the new carrier for incidents resulting in claims which are known prior to the inception of the coverage. This is consistent with most carriers.
