Professional Liability Insurance for Pharmacy Professionals

Professional Liability Insurance is vital and necessary for practicing pharmacy professionals.

What is Professional Liability Insurance?

Professional Liability Insurance is coverage that protects registrants against claims for mistakes or omissions made during the provision of professional pharmacy services which caused a patient to experience undue harm.

Professional Liability Insurance for Pharmacy Professionals

"Full Pharmacists” and “Pharmacy Technicians” must obtain and at all times maintain professional liability insurance coverage that meets the following 3 criteria as laid out in Section 81 of the Health Professions Act Bylaws and Professional Practice Policy-60:

Provides a minimum of $2 million coverage;
Provides occurrence based coverage or claims made coverage with extended reporting period of at least 3 years; and
If not issued in the pharmacists’ or pharmacy technicians’ name, the group policy covers the pharmacist or pharmacy technician as an individual

Professional liability insurance must cover activities within your scope of practice as well as your practice as a pharmacy professional in British Columbia.

It is important to note that professional liability insurance is not facilitated by the College as part of its registration process. Registrants are responsible for managing both the expiration and renewal of their own professional liability insurance coverage.

Professional Liability Insurance as a Function of Registration Class

Whether or not you are required to obtain professional liability insurance, is determined by your registration class.

Pharmacists

Registration Class	Professional liability insurance required?
Full Pharmacist	Yes
Student Pharmacist	No
Non-practicing Pharmacist	No
Temporary Pharmacist	Yes
Limited Pharmacist	Yes
Temporary Limited Pharmacist	Yes
Temporary Student Pharmacist	Yes

Pharmacy Technicians

Registration Class	Professional liability insurance required?
Pharmacy Technician	Yes
Non-practicing Pharmacy Technician	No
Temporary Pharmacy Technician	Yes

Registration Class

Professional liability insurance required?

Pharmacy Technician

Yes

Non-practicing Pharmacy Technician

Temporary Pharmacy Technician

Yes

It is important that registrants understand that if you are registered in any registration class other than ‘non-practicing’ or ‘student pharmacist’, you are required to obtain and/or maintain professional liability insurance, regardless of whether you are actively practicing or providing pharmacy services to patients in British Columbia.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I use professional liability inusrance coverage obtained in another province to meet requirements?

This depends on whether the professional liability coverage you have covers activities in BC. If the professional liability insurance coverage you have obtained in another province covers your activities in BC, then you may use it to meet the CPBC registration requirements.

If the coverage you have obtained does not cover your activities in BC, then you will be required to purchase new or additional professional liability insurance to meet the CPBC registration requirements.

Changes to Professional Liability Insurance

Changes to your registration class and/or professional liability insurance coverage must be handled appropriately in order to avoid finding yourself in contravention of section 81 of the Health Professions Act Bylaws.

Examples of registrants being found in contravention of the HPA’s General Liability Insurance Requirements.

A registrant renewed their registration as a Full Pharmacist before moving abroad temporarily. During their absence, their professional liability insurance coverage expired, but because they were not actively practicing in BC on the expiration date, they opted not to renew their coverage.

As a result, when they returned to BC to practice, they were unaware that they had been doing so without professional liability insurance coverage until it was identified by their employer.

As noted above, professional liability insurance is a function of a registrant’s registration class and must be maintained whether they are actively practicing in BC or not.

A registered Full Pharmacist had been practicing as a pharmacy manager prior to going on maternity leave. While on leave, her employer removed her professional liability insurance coverage, despite the fact that she was still registered as a Full Pharmacist.

Maternity leave and other forms of paid or unpaid leave are administered by your employer and have no relation to your registration status.

As such, while this registrant was not actively practicing during her maternity leave, she was still registered as a Full Pharmacist and thus required to maintain professional liability coverage.

If you plan to change your registration class from Full to Non-practicing at your next registration renewal, you must still maintain your professional liability insurance until your Full Pharmacist/Pharmacy Technician registration expires.

Often, registered pharmacy professionals are provided with professional liability insurance through their employers. In these cases, it is important that any changes made by an employer to an employee’s professional liability insurance coverage are communicated so that appropriate measures can be taken.

For further details on all renewal requirements, please refer to: Registration Renewal.