Dispensing errors · medication surveillance ·. In-house preparation
Professional indemnity insurance (BAV) for a pharmacy
A pharmacy does not make advisory mistakes at a meeting table but at the counter and in the robot. The loss is almost always injury, and that places particular demands on the policy.
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Deze pagina in het Nederlands: Beroepsaansprakelijkheidsverzekering voor een apotheek.
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.
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- 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
A pharmacy's liability arises in four places: in dispensing (the wrong strength, the wrong form, the right box to the wrong patient), in medication surveillance (an interaction or contraindication alert clicked away, a kidney function not checked), in in-house preparation (an ingredient weighed out incorrectly, a formulation that will not keep) and in individualised distribution such as weekly pill boxes and blister rolls for home care and nursing homes, where one incorrectly filled pouch carries on for weeks.
Almost all of those mistakes lead to damage to health and not to purely financial detriment. A policy that covers only pure financial loss is therefore unusable for a pharmacy. You need the healthcare version, in which personal injury caused in the course of your profession is included. For in-house preparations a second question arises: anyone who prepares medicines themselves can be treated as a producer within the meaning of Article 6:185 of the Dutch Civil Code, and product liability is a separate section that you must arrange separately.
Damage to your own property falls outside this. Spoiled fridge stock after a power cut, theft from the controlled drugs safe or water damage to the robot are property damage and belong on business contents insurance; the turnover you lose while the pharmacy is closed belongs on business interruption insurance. For individual professional practice there is a separate assessment, described on the page about the locum pharmacist.
This page deals with one situation. The full overview is on Compare professional indemnity insurance (BAV).
What to look out for
Four elements that a pharmacy claim actually turns on.
Recall costs are not the same as compensation
If you have to recall a batch of in-house preparation or an incorrectly filled series of pill boxes, you incur costs before any loss has occurred: tracing patients, replacing, informing. Those recall and withdrawal costs are excluded as standard on liability insurance. Separate cover exists for them; ask about it explicitly if you prepare or distribute medicines yourself.
Protocols are your evidence
After a dispensing error the insurer looks at the four-eyes check, the handling of surveillance alerts and the records in the pharmacy information system. Systematically departing from your own procedure can be treated as wilful recklessness, and that is excluded under Article 7:952 of the Dutch Civil Code. Record incidents and near misses. That helps both with the IGJ (the Dutch healthcare inspectorate) and in handling the claim.
Staff and hired-in pharmacy assistants
You are liable for your assistants' mistakes under Article 6:170 of the Dutch Civil Code. If you work with agency staff or a locum through an agency, check whether they fall within the class of insured persons. Injury to them is another matter: that falls under employers' liability and the duty of care in Article 7:658 of the Dutch Civil Code, not under this policy.
What falls outside the policy
The exclusions include: administrative fines and penalty payments imposed by the IGJ or the Autoriteit Persoonsgegevens (the Dutch data protection authority); the value of the medicine supplied itself and the cost of preparing it again; loss caused by a data breach in the patient records, for which you look to a cyber insurance; and circumstances you already knew about when you took out the policy but did not report.
What does your premium depend on?
- Number of prescription lines per year: the most commonly used measure of dispensing volume
- In-house preparation: sterile or complex preparation clearly increases the risk
- Individualised distribution: weekly pill boxes and blister rolls for institutions count separately
- Number of pharmacists and assistants: determines the size of the group of insured persons
- Sum insured: one dispensing error can affect several patients, so watch the annual maximum
- Retroactive and run-off periods: important because medication-related loss comes to light late
Insurers weigh these details differently. That is where your saving is.
What is covered
| Situation | AVB | BAV |
|---|---|---|
| A weekly pill box for a nursing home is filled incorrectly and a resident receives too low a dose for weeks on end | No | Yes |
| A patient is given a strength ten times too high and ends up in accident and emergency | No | Yes |
| An ointment prepared in-house causes a skin reaction in several patients | Provided that | Yes |
| A customer slips on a wet floor at the counter | Yes | No |
| An assistant is injured on the open door of the preparation room | Provided that | No |
| Your delivery driver hits a parked car with the pharmacy van | No | No |
Personal injury caused by dispensing belongs on the right, but only if your policy is the healthcare version. The motor risk belongs on neither.
Frequently asked questions
This is what people ask us most.
A patient was given the wrong strength and ended up in hospital. Is that covered?
It is if personal injury arising from professional practice is included on your policy. That is precisely the difference from an advisory policy that covers only financial detriment. The insurer will ask for the control procedure that was followed. Do not admit liability before the insurer has responded, and report the incident as soon as you know about it; Article 7:941 of the Dutch Civil Code requires you to do so.
Does a defective medicine from the manufacturer fall under our liability?
In principle the producer is liable under Article 6:185 of the Dutch Civil Code. But if you prepare medicines yourself, or place a product on the market under your own name, you can be treated as the producer. Failing to pass on a known recall or missing a surveillance alert can also amount to a mistake of your own. Record when you processed which manufacturer's notice.
What happens with a disciplinary complaint against the establishment pharmacist?
Disciplinary proceedings are not a claim for damages and therefore often fall outside liability insurance, even though the incident is the same. Some healthcare policies have a separate module for disciplinary defence. If there is none, you bear the cost of legal assistance yourself or arrange it through business legal expenses insurance.
We supply blister rolls to a nursing home. Does that change the cover?
Yes, state it when you apply. Individualised distribution means that one filling error affects dozens of doses and that there is an institution between you and the patient, with its own contractual arrangements. Insurers assess this as a separate risk. Activities that are not declared can have consequences for payment under Articles 7:928 and 7:930 of the Dutch Civil Code.
Read more
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