WASH. COMMISSIONER REFUNDS PREMIUMS TO DOCTORS:

The Center for Justice & Democracy, a national consumer organization that monitors insurance industry practices, applauded the Washington State Office of the Insurance Commissioner for ordering the state’s largest medical malpractice insurance carrier to refund $1.3 million to doctors. Physicians Insurance, which covers about 70 percent of Washington’s doctors, and its affiliate, Western Professional Insurance Company insurers, were also fined $90,000 for non-compliance with insurance code regulations. This comes after Physicians Insurance recently requested a 7.7 percent reduction in 2005 malpractice premiums. The Washington OIC action comes on the heels of its recent extensive actuarial analysis of Washington State medical malpractice claims and payouts for the last decade, finding there to be no medical malpractice litigation crisis in Washington. J. Robert Hunter, Director of Insurance for the Consumer Federation of America, said, “Finally, a study looking into the facts with proper actuarial effort involved, and we see average losses growing slower than medical inflation. At the same time, costs that insurers are spending to fight claims are rising more than 50 percent faster than losses. The next step is to get the missing information, such as the split between economic and non-economic damage payouts. Happily, the soft market is here and rates are dropping, so we will have a decade or so of no rate increases in which to do the needed work.”