Medical Malpractice and Awareness of Professional Liability Insurance among Physicians and Surgeons in Nigeria

Abstract

Although insurance is the traditional backbone of risk management of any modern country, yet only few people and organisations purchase insurance in Nigeria. The main purpose of this paper is to investigate the level of awareness and use of professional indemnity insurance (PII) by Nigerian medical doctors in contending with medical litigations. The research is domiciled in five local government areas in Lagos metropolitan city Nigeria. The research data was collected from sampled respondents of 50 resident doctors in both private and public medical institutions. The results revealed that majority of the medical doctors in the sample were unaware of PII and rarely made use of it in contending with financial liabilities. The research therefore recommends that insurance managers in Nigeria should boost insurance awareness among medical doctors through market communications and public educational programmes, to stimulate the latent need for insurance services among medical doctors in Nigeria.

Keywords

• medical malpractices
• insurance awareness
• professional indemnity insurance