Any professionals who offer advice, for example accountants, solicitors, as well as people such as those in the medical profession, should have professional indemnity insurance in place in case wrongful advice is given or inadvertent malpractice which may lead to legal liability. An example of this can be given from a story a good friend of mine told me many years ago. For the purpose of his anonymity we shall just call him ‘Mark S’. Whether this story was an exact truth or had a certain amount of poetic licence I will let you be the judge, as it was related to me over a few drinks in the pub!
A good twenty years ago, Mark S. had a particularly nasty car accident and after several operations involving the loss of about an inch off the length of one of his legs, he had to go for a psychological evaluation to see how the crash had affected him mentally. This was all part of the process for the insurance company to determine the amount of compensation he should be awarded.
Buttocks
So, upon attending the institution where the evaluation was to take place, there was a misunderstanding and a mix up with paperwork and my friend was accidentally mistaken for an inpatient! Subsequently, he told me he had to wear one of those hospital gowns where everyone can see your buttocks, and was carted off to one of the wards protesting that he was who he said he was. He was clearly not believed by the staff who naturally assumed he was the patient on the paperwork and mad as a brush!
Bonaparte
The cries of ‘Let me out! I’m only here for a psychological evaluation! There’s been a mistake! You’ve got to listen to me!’ were completely ignored, as was, as he put it, the bloke in the same room who was convinced he was Napoleon!
A Good Length
It was only after a good length of time when he had not reappeared, that the person waiting outside to give him a lift home went into the reception to find out where he was and if everything was ok. Upon investigation my friend was ‘released’ from the secure unit. Everything was eventually straightened out, but my friend subsequently related to me the horror of the ordeal he had been through, surmising that only someone who is genuinely mad could possibly fool the multitude of psychologists, psychoanalysts, psychotherapists and psychiatrists as to their sanity!
Fortunately there was no need to claim from the professional indemnity insurance of the institution, as apparently my friend was just only too happy to be free! However, remember if you are in any of the professions above or similar, it would be madness not to compare professional indemnity insurance here at Comparecrazy.com. The business insurance comparison site!
