Is Your Business Insurance Dental-Specific?

Insurance has two distinct roles in dental:

1. to draw patients and receive income, and
2. to provide coverage for risks, injuries, and accidents that happen on premises.

Business insurance provides protection for the latter, and is comprised of a few coverages that a business owner is mandated to have to meet state, lender, and landlord requirements per contract.  These core four coverages are:

• General Liability
• Business Personal Property
• Business Interruption
• Worker’s Compensation

These four coverages are standard in most policies. When comparing quotes and options, most doctors will look at these specific items to see if the amounts match, then trust the insurance agent or company that the rest of the policy will cover the risks of their particular business.

However, the above four coverages are not the only elements that a dentist should look for in a policy built specifically for a dental office.  This is because most businesses are not a combination of a corporate back office, a retail front end, and surgical center rounding out the space. A dental office can be all of these things in a 2200sqft space, and that creates an environment for specific, heightened risks, such as:

1. Allegations of wrongful termination, harassment, or discrimination
2. Loss or breach of sensitive patient data
3. Inadequate coverage and limits due to misunderstanding of day-to-day activities

A dental office often contains subject-knowledge experts in clinical case design and implementation, sales, customer service, and operations.  All of these elements need strong leaders to succeed, and they have to be working at similar levels of efficiency to make sure the office runs smoothly.  If a team member starts to drop the ball and the practice starts to suffer, the decision may be made to change personnel in order to bring the business back on track.  The office could later receive a letter from a former team member claiming they were let go due to their race, orientation, gender, etc., when it may be that they were not adequately fulfilling the vital role they were hired for.  What is the business owner to do when threatened with a lawsuit via a letter? 

There is insurance coverage to help provide legal defense protection to a business owner in a case like this, known as Employment Practices Liability Insurance (EPLI).  EPLI coverage is not a standard inclusion in a policy, but it protects against risks that nearly all dental offices face, and is something that every practice owner should consider carrying in an environment where turnover in the industry is at an all-time high. 

Another concern is cyber security.  As office and patient data becomes increasingly digital through the use of cloud-based practice management programs, digital scanners to take impressions, and AI-insights coded into treatment planning, the risk of sensitive patient information being stolen or breached increases greatly.  Not only do practices need to worry about their own safeguards (password control, two-factor authentication sign-ons, phishing and social engineering education, etc.) but they need to be concerned that if one of the software services they use have a breach, their patient data is at risk through no fault of their own.  If there is a loss or breach of information, the patients need to be notified and provided services to protect against identity theft.  This can result in a lawsuit brought forth against the office if the patients feel strongly enough about the safety of their information.  There is Cyber Liability and Data Breach coverage available to help pay for legal defense costs and patient notification should a cyber issue arise in the office.  Cyber Liability and Data Breach coverage again are not standard offerings, but can be added as a sub-limit or as a standalone policy to provide additional protection against this risk impacting the office.

Lastly, dental offices are filled with singularly expensive equipment, in an environment that is also vulnerable to electrical and plumbing issues due to the number of connections and the daily use.  These causes of loss can be a larger issue for a dental office than they would be for a services-based business, like tax-preparation or pest-control.  Water damage due to a pipe burst, sewage back-up through the plumbing channels, or fire damage in one (or multiple) operatories can inhibit a practice from being operational for months at a time.  This necessitates limits of coverage that are greater than the typical small sub-limits that are present on a standard business owner’s policy.  In addition, there are ways to broaden these coverages for dental offices and request higher limits with certain carriers so that, if these events do take place, the doctor can replace said equipment or replace lost income due to losing patients. 

At CFS Dental Division, our team has built a product suite with multiple insurance carriers to include all of the above elements of coverage into our offerings. We want to make sure that your business insurance is not run of the mill, but built specifically to address the risks of a dental office. 

If you would like to discuss this for your practice, you can reach out to:

Conor DePalma
E: co***@***************on.com
Ph: 973-954-6960