S.C. Malpractice Premiums Going Up 12.7 Percent in July

Despite a bill signed into law last month in South Carolina capping pain and suffering awards in medical malpractice lawsuits, two of the state’s largest malpractice insurers have announced plans to increase doctor’s premiums as of June 1.

The Joint Underwriting Association has filed for a 12.7 percent rate increase. The rate increase for the Patients Compensation Fund will vary depending upon the limits selected by the doctor. The combined rate increase for the JUA and the Patients Compensation Fund, are: $1 million/$3 million limits, 8.1 percent; $3 million/$6 million, 9.9 percent; $5 million/$7 million, 10.1 percent; $10 million/$12 million, 11.3 percent; and unlimited, 16.3 percent.

It will probably take a couple of years for the caps to have an effect on insurance rates, Dan Brake, a North Charleston doctor who chairs the underwriting association’s board told the Myrtle Beach Sun-News.

The new law limits non-economic damage awards to $350,000. If there are multiple defendants, such awards would be capped at $1.05 million in medical malpractice suits.

South Carolina created the Joint Underwriting Association and the Patients Compensation Fund in the 1970s after a number of malpractice insurers left doctors without coverage. The JUA covers the first $200,000/$600,000 of a doctor’s liability. The PCS covers the excess limit above the JUA.

The new caps likely will bring other private malpractice insurers back into South Carolina, which would mean more competition and lower rates, Brake said.

But not everyone thinks rates will decline sharply.

“Caps never have helped insurance rates and I don’t think they ever will help insurance rates,” Fayrell Furr, a Myrtle Beach malpractice attorney told the News-Sentinel. “Rates will only go down once doctors start regulating themselves, get rid of the doctors who cause most of the losses and start practicing better medicine.”

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