Real insurance or fake insurance?
Choosing a nursing home for a loved one in Florida is a difficult decision at best. Our clients often ask us for tips on how to choose.
Here is a tip you may not have thought of. Ask for a copy of the nursing home’s liability insurance policy and declaration page.
While at first you might think insurance is not related to whether a nursing home will provide good care, it actually is an important factor to consider.
Many, if not most, nursing homes in Florida are businesses operating for profit. If the employee payroll is small and the patient population is large, profits are higher.
The problem with this business model is that when there aren’t enough employees to pay attention to the patients, mistakes are made and patients are ignored. When patients are neglected they can end up with broken bones and infections can go untreated.
Usually in Florida, a company buys insurance with limits sufficient to protect its customers and itself. Nursing homes should be no different and should buy sufficient insurance to protect its patients who through the nursing home’s negligence break a bone or even die due to an infection being left inadequately treated.
Many nursing homes now take a different approach. Instead of buying insurance to pay for the damage they cause, some nursing homes have used the laws of Florida to create many corporations in an attempt to make it difficult to collect any legal judgments against them.
If the business plan is to become “judgment proof ” the nursing home may not buy liability insurance with sufficient limits to protect its patients. These nursing homes are not worried about having to pay for a legal judgment.
As local Daytona Beach lawyers representing patients against nursing homes, when we see this type of business model it is often accompanied by a corporate attitude that can result in patients getting entirely inadequate care.
When you are choosing a nursing home ask to see the liability policy and declarations page. If the total amount payable by the insurance company for a claim is less than $100,000 it is reasonable to be concerned about how the nursing home will protect your loved one.
Daytona Beach Injury and Accident Lawyers
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