Compulsory insurance for healthcare professionals and healthcare providers

Public and private healthcare providers and professionals are required to be covered with compulsory insurance for their third-party civil liability.

Article 10 of Italian Law no. 24/2017 (known as Law Gelli-Bianco) provides that minimum requirements for compulsory insurance have to be determined by a decree of the Ministry of Economic Development issued after consultations with other stakeholders.

Five years after Law no. 24/2017 entered into force, an agreement on the content of the decree has finally been reached. A draft is currently available (though it is still subject to final approval and possible amendments) before entering into force.

Insurers will be required to issue insurance policies compliant with the new requirements within 24 months of the decree entering into force.

The most significant innovations are:

• Compulsory insurance must cover in particular:
  • contractual liability of healthcare providers for damages caused to third parties by their personnel;
  • non-contractual liability of the healthcare providers for damages caused by professionals even if they are not employees; and
  • contractual liability of healthcare professionals.
• Policy limits will be, depending on the risk class, at least from EUR1 million to EUR5 million per claim (and at least three times these limits for the annual aggregate).

• The injured party will be entitled to bring a direct action against an insurer who, subject to specific policy provisions approved in writing by the insured, may raise coverage defences based only on the following issues:
  • claims arising from activities falling outside scope of coverage;
  • events occurred outside the policy period;
  • self-insurance retention and deductible; and
  • failure to pay policy premiums by the insured.
• Insurance coverage is provided in the claims made form, with a retroactive period of ten years and an extended reporting period of ten years in the event of termination of the professional activity by the insured in the policy period.

Healthcare providers will be also entitled to choose self-insurance retention; in this case specific provisions apply.

At this stage, insurance companies have to wait for the final approval of the decree before starting to issue new contracts compliant with the new requirements.