I own an Insurance and Risk Management agency that specializes in MPLI (Medical Professional Liability Insurance aka Malpractice). My entire family is in the Medical field and I have a strong passion for helping to protect our Providers.
Without knowing the ins/outs of your specific practice, or reading the policy that you have, my initial opinion would be 1m/3m is about average. We are seeing an increase of Physicians requesting 2m/6m as well as 3m/9m of coverage. Some of the policies we write go up to 21m of coverage (this is VERY rare).
The obvious counter-argument by some for higher limits would be - are you just painting a bigger target on your back?
To your question about the lawsuit... your State will play a factor as to the maximum amounts someone can be awarded for damages. As to who will foot the bill - that depends. One of the Physicians I insure was just involved in a wrongful death lawsuit and he personally, not the hospital, was named on the lawsuit.
My recommendation would be to look at placing your own coverage - if you don't like the quote, then you don't have to take it, but at least you'd know. Although your employer may offer MPLI as part of your benefits package, they make no guarantee that it will be adequate coverage. Many Physicians that we insure are employees of a Group or Hospital and have opted to add additional coverage. If you do place your own policy - make sure you get some added benefits from your carrier - free CMEs, free risk analyses, webinars, etc.
Our carriers do reviews of Malpractice cases for purposes of helping avoid risk in the future... Here is a case you may find interesting that we just analyzed:
Facts of Case
A 30-year-old woman in her eighth month of pregnancy with twins called her obstetrician after-office hours to report a decrease in fetal movement. She was advised to go to the hospital L & D (Labor and Delivery) department for a non-stress test. An L & D nurse performed the test, called the physician to report that the strip did not look reassuring and requested that he come in to see the patient. The physician refused to come in, accused the nurse of not knowing how to read a fetal monitor strip, yelled at her for "bothering him," and ordered her to discharge the patient home with instructions to call the office in the morning with an update on fetal movement. The next morning the woman called the office to say she did not feel any fetal movement. She was told to go to the hospital immediately and an ultrasound showed fetal demise. She was induced and delivered stillborn twins.
The patient and her husband sued the obstetrician and the hospital alleging failure to diagnose fetal distress. The physician experts who reviewed the care were extremely critical of the obstetrician for failing to come in to see the patient given the nurse's report of fetal distress. They reviewed the non-stress test strips and opined that had the patient had a C-section at that time, the twins would likely have survived. Nurse experts criticized the L & D nurse's failure to follow the chain of command and report the physician's refusal to come in to her supervisor.
Disposition of Case
The case was settled for over $1 million on behalf of the physician and the hospital.
Feel free to PM me if you have any further questions/concerns.
