On 4 and 5 December 2018, members of our team attended the first Global Medical Indemnity Forum hosted by the Victorian Managed Insurance Authority in Melbourne. Bill Dwyer, our General Manager, and Dan Wotton, our Stakeholder Relationship Manager, attended alongside their colleague from the State Actuary’s Office, Michiru Takizawa, Senior Actuarial Officer. The forum was the first of its kind and brought together a range of industry experts including state insurers, commercial insurers and underwriters (including a syndicate from Lloyd’s of London), clinical researchers, and clinical practitioners.
Keeping pace with the changing healthcare industry is a challenge for medical indemnity insurers worldwide. Around the world, clinicians and insurers are developing and applying unique solutions to improve patient safety, while reducing the cost and frequency of claims. One of the goals of the forum was to build a network of subject matter experts, to tap into the expertise of industry academia and government. The forum welcomed experts from England, Ireland, America, Singapore, New Zealand and of course, Australia.
As well as hearing from keynote speakers, the forum featured a patient advocate who shared her own experience of dealing with the medical profession and a misdiagnosis. Delegates were also given the opportunity to present initiatives that they had been working on, within their own jurisdictions. Dan presented on our work around the dissection of finalised Cerebral Palsy claims and their settlement figures.
The forum was a huge success with lots of business cards exchanged, a large network formed, and takeaway learnings for all involved. We found it particularly useful to hear other jurisdictions reinforce the need for uniform data collection to develop detailed analytics that can be provided to insured agencies. We look forward to working on uniform data collection in the coming year.