Posted by Amy Carbone on Mar 13, 2023 9:00:00 AM
You’ve spent a lot of time, money, and effort building your dental career, so the last thing you want is for your practice to suffer due to unforeseeable events. It’s crucial to create a strong foundation of dental practice insurance solutions to ensure your practice legacy remains intact in the event of illness, injury, lawsuits, or theft. Below, we’ll discuss six policies to consider and how they may form solid protection for your dental practice:
Business Insurance for Dentists To Consider
1. Business Owner’s Protection (BOP)
Business owner’s protection is a policy that may help you more easily recover from financial losses from unexpected events such as property damage, equipment malfunction, damaged files, and more.
Business owner’s protection coverage is like a homeowner’s policy for your practice, as it essentially combines business property insurance with business liability insurance.
2. Data Breach Insurance
While this may not be at the top of your list of dental practice insurance solutions, data breaches are more common than you might think. A single cyberattack in 2021 impacted more than 125,000 dental patients across the United States.
While there are a number of preventative actions you can take, when a patient’s personal information is lost, stolen, or exposed due to insufficient security measures, the damage can be costly (and sometimes impossible) to repair. The damage to your reputation may also be significant..
Data breach coverage can mitigate the associated costs and potential litigation associated with data loss or theft. Some policies even provide coverage for data breach preparedness and response services for fast, multi-faceted action before and after a data breach.
3. Business Overhead Expense Insurance
Business overhead expense insurance is designed to reimburse you for fixed business expenses if you’re unable to work due to a disability.
While the details may vary from policy-to-policy, common expenses that may be covered include:
- Rent or mortgage payments
- Staff salaries
- Utilities
- Property taxes
- Professional dues
If you own or are contemplating starting a dental practice, a business overhead expense insurance policy can provide you with fiscal security in certain situations.
4. Business Loan Protection
If you have business loans, this insurance can provide your practice with financial continuity in the face of uncertainty.
A business loan protection policy allows you to make payments on loans related to your dental practice, even when a disability curtails your ability to earn an income. Instead of worrying about your loan payments in a time of distress, you can focus on healing and getting back to your practice.
5. Entity Malpractice Insurance
In the case of a malpractice lawsuit, your business may be named. While professional liability malpractice insurance covers you personally, entity insurance protects your practice against malpractice lawsuits that apply to you, your staff, and your partners. By having sufficient coverage from both, you may have the ability to protect all of your assets with a solid foundation of insurance.
6. Worker’s Compensation
Although worker’s compensation laws vary by state, most states require some form of worker’s compensation policy as a way to help protect you, your staff, and your practice in case of a workplace injury.
This insurance has a number of benefits, but its primary focus is providing coverage for medical expenses and wages lost during recovery for any employee who is injured while working at your dental practice.
7. Employment Practices Liability Insurance
With the potential of adding employment practices liability as part of your BOP, you can aim to protect yourself from employee-related lawsuits. Covered claims may include harassment, discrimination, failure to promote, and wrongful termination.
Get the Right Coverage To Protect Your Dental Practice
When deciding which business insurance for dentists can benefit your practice, it’s important to work with an insurance specialist who understands the specific needs of dentists..
Contact us today to speak with one of our experienced Treloar & Heisel representatives who will guide you through the process and identify the best options for you.
About Treloar & Heisel
Treloar & Heisel, an EPIC Company, offers dental and medical professionals a comprehensive suite of financial products and services ranging from business and personal insurance to wealth management. We are proud to assist thousands of clients from residency to practice and through retirement. Our experienced teams deliver custom-tailored advice through an active local presence, while our strong national network ensures that clients experience the same high level of service throughout the country.
