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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
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? |
|---|---|
| Yes | |
| Student Pharmacist | No |
| Non-practicing Pharmacist | No |
| Temporary Pharmacist | Yes |
| Limited Pharmacist | Yes |
Pharmacy Technicians
|
Registration Class |
Professional liability insurance required? |
|---|---|
| Yes | |
| Non-practicing Pharmacy Technician | No |
| 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’, 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.
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.
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.
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.