Entity cover

As a result of recent legal decisions in cases brought against dental practices, it has become clear that both individual practice owners and any entity (Limited Company or partnership) that owns and operates a dental practice, could be held liable for the actions of a self-employed dental associate who may have provided negligent treatment to a patient seen in the practice. This is not a new law, but reflects recent changes in the approach being taken by patients' legal representatives, especially those conducting cases on a 'no win-no fee' basis. These firms are encouraging patients to sue a practice owner (or entity) rather than the dentist(s) who actually carried out the treatment.

Increasingly in recent years, both practice owners and associate dentists have set up limited companies on the advice of their financial advisors to manage their dental income and their tax position. NHS Providers have also chosen to incorporate in order to protect their NHS contract and goodwill value.

Whilst all practising dentists are required by law to have their own professional indemnity in place, to cover their own acts and omissions, it is important to note that in most cases this indemnity arrangement is personal to the individual dentist and will not cover claims brought against the Limited Company, this being a separate legal entity.

This means that a claim which is brought against the entity that you have shares in would only be covered if the entity has its own separate insurance, or if the entity is specifically named as a party covered by your personal insurance policy (or membership of a discretionary indemnity provider). Failing that, the company could be forced to pay any damages and the patient's legal expenses out of its own resources, and additionally to find and pay for its own legal representation and other costs incurred in defending the claim.

No. It is only available to limited companies which are wholly or partly owned by one or more BDA Indemnity policyholder(s). Those policyholders must collectively own 50% or more of the company. Only individual registered dentists who are in an appropriate tier of membership can apply for and hold a BDA Indemnity policy.

Yes to both. Although many organisations choose to offer entity cover only on a 'claims made' basis, or on a discretionary basis (or worse still, a discretionary claims made basis), BDA Indemnity was set up with the deliberate intention of avoiding the many gaps that can arise in relation to claims made cover. Reflecting that, and the fact that a practice owned by a Limited Company might face additional vulnerability because of these gaps, we have taken care to ensure that both individuals and entities can enjoy the added protection of occurrence based, contractual indemnity insurance.

This is particularly valuable in the case of claims which relate to treatment which was provided by dentists who no longer work at the practice, perhaps having left many years ago. Occurrence based indemnity provides cover in perpetuity, irrespective of how many years later a claim is brought and without the need to buy any additional ('run off') cover.

Not in terms of the number of dentists, or the number of practices/sites. But the BDA represents, advises and supports dentists, and BDA Indemnity was never designed to cover large corporates, especially not those which are majority-owned by non-dentists. For that reason, and to avoid smaller dental practices having to subsidise the larger corporate groups, we have chosen to use gross turnover as an approximate measure of practice size, limiting our entity cover to those with an annual gross turnover of £2.5 million or less. Below that level, the pricing varies for different levels of turnover. Intact Insurance UK Limited will review cover for entities that have an annual turnover of over £2.5 million.