For those who are having difficulty finding the USLCA (United States 
Lactation Consultant Association) website, the easiest way is to go to 
www.ilca.org, and click the sixth button down under 'What's New at ILCA."    
Once at USLCA, you will find the button for "liability insurance" along the 
top bar.

As for professional liability insurance rates:  insurance companies are in 
the simple business of pulling in more money (in premiums) than they pay-out 
(in claims or settlements).

Example:  ten of us pay $100/year for car insurance.  The insurance company 
now has $1000.  One of us gets into a fender bender requiring $300 to 
repair.  The insurance company can pay out the $300 and still make a profit 
this year.

But what if five of us got into fender benders?  That is $1500 worth of 
pay-outs.  The insurance company would still give each of us our $300.  How? 
  The minute they collected the $1000 pot, they started to invest the money 
to make it grow.  BUT -- you can be absolutely assured that NEXT year our 
annual premiums would rise from $100 to something like $200.

Insurance isl just an odds-hedging venture.  As soon as the pool of insured 
people start to statistically show that they are getting into more 
fender-benders, the insurance execs pull out their calculators to figure out 
how much more they need to charge to make those increased pay-outs, an still 
make a profit.

Now, in real life, the calculations are extraordinarily complex.  That is 
why you'll pay more for car insurance in one location over another:  they 
take into account how many dirvers there are; how often the different ages 
and sex groups get into accidents; how much it costs to get cars fixed in 
that region; etc etc etc

The same is true for professional liability insurance.  Some states or 
cities have more lawsuits, and more pay-outs.  The folks contributing to 
that pool will pay higher premiums.  I don't think there has been a surge in 
lawsuits against IBCLCs specifically -- but there is, generally speaking, an 
awful lot of suing and paying-out going on here in the US of A.

Tactically, when there is a medical malpractice suit, the attorneys are 
suing *everyone* who ever came within a ten-foot circle of the injured 
person.  Nurses, docs, IBCLCs  and candy-stripers are all named in the 
initial suit.  It costs the insurance company money to hire a lawyer to go 
into court and tell the judge that the IBCLC has no business being in the 
lawsuit.  (It costs even more to defend the IBCLC against legitimate 
claims.)


Liz Brooks, JD, IBCLC (ILCA Secy 2005-08 and USLCA member)
Wyndmoor, PA, USA

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