Allied health practices are shouldering more risk at the point of care. Claim frequency has been stable to down in many lines, but severity is climbing—driven by bigger verdicts, higher defense costs, and more complex cases that take longer to resolve. For brokers, that mix translates into firmer pricing, higher retentions, and closer scrutiny of coverage wording, especially where practices have expanded scope or moved services outside the traditional office.
Why severity is rising
Verdict inflation. Juries have grown more comfortable with eight-figure awards in medical cases, and plaintiff strategies increasingly frame stories around systemic failures rather than one-off errors. Even when cases settle, carrier expectations are framed by recent verdicts, nudging settlements upward.
Defense drag. Tougher cases last longer. The added months (or years) of expert review, discovery, and mediation push allocated loss adjustment expenses up, sometimes to a meaningful share of the total incurred.
More care in ambulatory settings. Urgent care, retail clinics, and aging-services facilities place allied providers in first-touch roles where diagnostic and triage decisions carry higher consequence. When the first link in the chain breaks, claim narratives often emphasize system and supervision.
Telehealth changed the risk surface—permanently
Telehealth adoption remains highest in behavioral health, but virtual visits are now part of the workflow for many allied roles (pre/post-op checks, medication reviews, brief screens). The risks aren’t just clinical; they’re procedural:
- Verifying identity and location at each encounter
- Having crisis plans when risk escalates (e.g., suicidality)
- Navigating cross-state licensure and venue/choice-of-law issues
- Ensuring platform security and consent forms tailored to virtual care
Policies need to reflect this reality: check territory language, incident-reporting definitions, and whether license/regulatory defense is included.
GET THE SUMMIT
Sign up for news and stuff all about the stuff you wanna know about in your sector twice a month.
