Planning and deployment · the duty to check · working in clients' homes
Professional indemnity – Maternity care
A maternity care organisation delivers care at hundreds of addresses it does not set up itself. The risk lies in who you send in, and whether that person is there on time.
- Several insurers compared objectively
- 9.5 customer rating for a new policy
- AFM licence 12016589
- Personal 072 - 509 24 56, weekdays 9–17
Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Beroepsaansprakelijkheid – Kraamzorg.
The calculator and the quote form below are in Dutch. Prefer to do this in English? Email info@finassverzekert. nl or call 072 - 509 24 56 and we will take it from there.
Work out for yourself what it would cost.
Enter your details; you will receive a proposal within one working day.
- We compare the offerings of several insurers
- An adviser checks whether the cover suits your activities
- We arrange the switch, including cancellation
A premium indication, not personal advice. Prefer to talk it through? Call 072 - 509 24 56.
In brief
Unlike for a maternity care assistant working alone, your risk lies in the organisation of the care. Indicated hours not delivered, a wrong match between the indication and the staff deployed, a carer replaced without a handover, or an emergency birth for which no on-call cover was available. If loss arises as a result, the allegation concerns your planning and availability, not one procedure at the bedside.
You are liable for mistakes by your maternity care assistants on the payroll under Article 6:170 of the Dutch Civil Code, and towards the client often also for self-employed professionals working under your name (Article 6:171 of the Dutch Civil Code). The Wkkgz (the Dutch healthcare quality, complaints and disputes act) adds a duty to verify on top: you must check how a new care provider performs. If you cannot show that, it directly affects your position in a claim about that person.
The third layer is your duty of care as an employer. Your staff work in homes that you did not set up: steep stairs, slippery bathrooms, pets, smoking indoors, sometimes aggression. Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code applies in full, including at a third party's workplace, and paragraph 4 extends that duty to hired-in workers. If a carer is bitten by the family's dog, the keeper of the animal is liable under Article 6:179 of the Dutch Civil Code, but the question whether you should have headed off the risk follows immediately.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare professional indemnity insurance (BAV).
Where an organisation comes unstuck
Four subjects on which maternity care policies differ from one another the most.
Hired-in self-employed professionals
If you work with self-employed maternity care assistants, have it recorded whether they are named as insured persons on your policy or whether you require them to hold their own cover. Ask for a valid policy schedule every year. A lapsed policy held by a hired-in worker comes back to your organisation through the client, because she made the arrangement with you and not with her.
Intake, indication and availability
Claims about too little care being delivered are in the first place a contractual dispute with the client or the health insurer. If medical harm arises because no one was there in time, it shifts to liability. Record the indication, the arrangements made and the reason for every departure from them; without that trail it cannot be reconstructed what was promised.
Working safely in someone else's home
Include a safety check at intake: lifting aids, access, pets, smoking policy and an arrangement about aggression. Record incident reports and follow them up. In an injury claim by a member of staff, the court tests under Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code whether you did everything you could; a risk assessment that does not mention the home situation is not complete in this work.
Three exclusions to read in advance
Outside the cover are: damage to the client's household contents through the care, custody and control exclusion, administrative fines from the Inspectorate or the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority), and liability you have accepted by contract in an agreement with a health insurer and that would not exist without that clause. Intent and wilful recklessness fall outside under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code.
What does your premium depend on?
- Turnover or number of maternity weeks per year: the common basis for the premium
- Number of maternity care assistants: on the payroll and hired-in counted separately
- Assistance at births in your range of services: being present at births weighs more heavily
- Working area and travel: a lot of commuting changes the staff risk
- Sum insured and excess: per claim and per insurance year
- Quality and complaints policy: the duty to check, training and incident records are taken into account
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| Because of a planning error no one is available at an emergency birth and mother or baby suffers harm | Provided that | Yes |
| At a shift change the weight chart is not handed over and a baby losing a lot of weight is referred too late | Provided that | Yes |
| An agency worker at your office sprains her wrist on a defective office chair | Yes | No |
| Your delivery driver damages a client's front door while delivering a maternity pack | Yes | No |
| Two families receive each other's maternity care file by post | No | No |
| A carer causes a collision in her own car on the way to a client | No | No |
The AVB looks at what happened in and around the home, the professional cover at what the care itself should have delivered.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
A hired-in maternity care assistant makes a mistake. Who carries it?
The client almost always claims against your organisation, because that is where she bought the care. Whether you can pass that loss on depends on the agreement with the self-employed professional and on her own insurance. So arrange both sides: inclusion in your class of insured persons or a demonstrably valid policy of her own, plus a clear agreement on recovery.
Our member of staff is injured in a client's home. Which policy?
Employer's liability, usually a section on public and employers' liability insurance and not on the professional cover. The insurer assesses whether you complied with Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code: instruction, aids, incident reports and follow-up. If an animal or a defect in the home is the cause, you may be able to recover the loss from the keeper or owner under Article 6:179 or 6:174 DCC.
Because of a staff shortage we could not deliver all the hours. Is that insured?
In principle not. Failing to meet a delivery arrangement is a contractual dispute and does not produce an insured loss; insurers exclude penalties, reductions and refunds of your own fees. It only becomes different if the absence of care demonstrably caused harm to the health of the mother or baby.
What if our planning software containing client data is hacked?
That is not a professional error. Investigation, recovery, notifying the data subjects and liability towards them belong on a cyber insurance. A fine from the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens is not insurable anywhere. Bear in mind that data about a pregnancy and birth are special category personal data, with the notification deadlines that go with them.
Read more
Within Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekeringthe main page
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering jeugdzorg organisatie
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering huidtherapie praktijk
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering thuiszorg
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering wondzorg
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering osteopathie praktijk
- Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering fysiotherapiepraktijk
Similar pages
- Professional indemnity – Youth care organisation
- Professional indemnity – Home care
- Professional indemnity – Skin therapy practice
- Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for an osteopathy practice
- Professional indemnity – Physiotherapy practice
- Professional indemnity – GP practice
- Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for a dietetics practice
- Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for a social worker