The purpose of insurance is to protect against extraordinary or catastrophic financial losses. One potential loss to consider is when a terminated or disgruntled employee hires an attorney to sue your practice for wrongful termination or for an array of other situations while a member of your staff.
Employment Practices Liability Insurance, or EPLI for short, is the type of insurance that protects against claims filed by disgruntled employees. Expect to pay annual EPLI premiums based on the size of your staff and the dollar amount of wages paid. In the grand scheme of insurances, the premiums are generally quite reasonable, especially when compared with the potential for a sizable settlement that could financially devastate your practice.
For an EPLI quote, please reach out to the insurance agent where you obtain your Property and Casualty (P&C) insurances, which includes business liability, workers compensation, and malpractice. Your life, disability, or health insurance agent probably can’t help with EPLI.
If you are unlucky enough to ever receive that certified letter notifying you that your practice is being sued by a disgruntled or terminated employee, you will be very glad that you purchased EPLI. Simply pass that certified letter along to the insurance company that issued your EPLI policy, and they should take over from there. Since your EPLI company takes on much of the risk of losing money on the settlement, they take whatever steps are necessary to minimize the claim.
In the many years that we have helped our healthcare practices, we thankfully haven’t seen too many employment-related claims. Even so, they do happen from time to time, and sometimes the losses can be substantial. For that reason, we recommend that all our clients who own their own practice and employ staff consider purchasing EPLI.
And Don’t Forget About Cyber Insurance:
While you’re getting a quote for EPLI for your practice, please also inquiry about obtaining Cyber insurance for your practice to protect against the costs and headaches that follow a cyber breach.
If you need the name of a Property and Casualty Insurance Agent, please ask your client manager for a referral. For our CPA firm, we use Marc Slafsky from Salem Five Insurance Services as our P&C insurance broker. Marc can be reached at 978-720-5144 or Marc.Slafsky@salemfive.com.