Te last few years have seen some new providers emerging on the medical indemnity market. Here CEO Professor Gordon Dickson reaffirms some of the core values and strengths of the MDDUS mutual approach


HE 26 members who gathered in a building in Glasgow in May 1902 to form the MDDUS could hardly have imagined what lay ahead. With a total income in that first year of £231, eighteen shillings and three pence, they laid the foundation of a mutual organisation that was to grow and expand its operations until today we have an income of over £52m, with more than 30,000 members and assets exceeding £333m.


Mutual aims, T


We are not, of course, alone in providing clinical indemnity and support to doctors and dentists. Tere are two other major medical defence organisations in the UK and together with them we count the vast majority of the country’s doctors and dentists as members. In addition there has always been the need for other smaller providers who offer protection where the main defence bodies have been unable to do so for one reason or another. However in recent years we have seen some new entrants to the medical indemnity market, targeted at either so-called “low-risk” doctors or those in specific medical specialties such as ophthalmology or plastic surgery.


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Te business models of these new providers seem to be similar in that they all target established doctors with “good” records and provide indemnity by a policy of insurance. Acceptance, or underwriting of the risk, is done by an insurance vehicle rather than by medical peers and all operate under a commercial imperative with the ultimate risk carrier seeking to make a profit. Competition and the choice it brings are good for the market, and clinicians are more than able to judge for themselves how best to secure their medical defence needs. At MDDUS we have seen little impact from these new entrants, with very few members electing to change provider. However, faced with choice it is best that it is one well informed by the facts and so I wanted to highlight a few important features that underline some of the core values the Union believe to be important in the provision of medical defence, values that have stood the test of time over these past 109 years.


Clinical claims


Te first feature to emphasis is that these new providers offer “claims-made”


SUMMONS


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