Medical Indemnity Insurance: a Study on Voluntary Insurance

Abstract

In Thailand, problems on lawsuits against practitioners and insufficient compensations for patients make voluntarily medical indemnity insurance more important. Medical indemnity insurances will compensate patients suffering from medical services. However, some problems related to this insurance remain. In Thailand, practitioners rarely take out medical indemnity insurances. There are problems on laws applicable to medical indemnity insurances since some of their details are quite different from those of other liability insurances. In addition, there are some problems on policy patterns, policy characteristics and insurance renewal.

It was found from the study that, in Thailand, practitioners rarely take out medical indemnity insurances therefore the Law of Large Number is not applicable. As a result, premium and medical treatment costs are high. In addition, Thailand has not established a specific law on medical indemnity but the insurance law under Book 3 Section 20 of the Civil and Commercial Code is applied in such cases. It can handle the matter but lacks important details. Few patterns of indemnity insurance policies are available. Indemnity insurance policies have been taken out from private insurance companies on individual basis only. The association of medical practitioners missing from the scene unlike foreign countries where the matter is well established.

From the reasons mentioned earlier, the researcher believes that Thailand should issue a specific law on medical indemnity like those of certain foreign countries. Thailand should enhance the issuance of various types of indemnity insurance policies to persuade practitioners to take out policies as well. Practitioners should establish a medical association to take part in this indemnity insurance scene. This is to allow practitioners with similar risks to share their risks which shall be beneficial to both practitioners and patients.