First and foremost, it is a smart choice to buy an individual professional liability insurance policy for yourself. You will be designated as the insured individual up to the scope of your license, and you will be covered 24 hours per day. Your employer’s insurance policy may cover you, but not for all incidents.
We find that many social workers are employed by multiple employers. Many social workers work outside of their primary employer. This is another reason to buy your own professional liability insurance policy because it is portable.
We have also found that many social workers create their own practice and hire employees, while still working for a primary employer. With your own professional liability insurance policy, you can name your contractors and employees as additional insureds. If you rent or own your office, you should buy the NASW RRG general liability coverage as well. If you own your patient list, then consider the NASW RRG cyber liability policy.
The NASW RRG professional liability insurance can be a claims-made policy or an occurrence policy. The NASW RRG general liability insurance policy is an occurrence policy. When you say “occurrence policy” think lifetime coverage. That means no matter when you canceled your policy, if at any time in the future during your entire lifetime, a claim is filed against you that is based on an incident that occurred when your policy was in force, you are covered. The claims-made policy only responds to claims which are brought when the policy is in force. You can buy an tail coverage when you terminate a claims-made policy, but these are not more than 3 to 12 years in duration.