Chicago Injury Law Blog

" An umbrella activist group calling for insurance reform released a study Wednesday in an attempt to refute the claim that out-of-control litigation prompted medical malpractice insurance rates to skyrocket in recent years.

Americans for Insurance Reform says annual insurance industry numbers show that the amount of money paid for medical malpractice settlements, verdicts and legal defense has remained relatively flat for almost two decades, when adjusted for inflation and accounting for the growing number of doctors nationally.

According to the study — which based its findings on information from A.M. Best & Co., an insurance industry analyst firm — the total amount of money paid was almost $4.9 billion in 2005 nationally. The study calculated that to be a payout of $5,400 dollars per doctor, the lowest since 1981 when adjusted for inflation.

The study's author, a former government official, said those numbers indicate that the rising insurance rates that drove doctors to leave Madison and St. Clair counties can't be the result of the active trial bars of the Metro East area. Instead, market-related forces — poor performance in investment bonds — and bad insurance company management are to blame, said J. Robert Hunter, a former federal insurance administrator during President Gerald Ford's administration. He is now with the Consumer Federation of America.

"The insurance companies have incentives to blame the lawyers," Hunter said. "Otherwise they'd have to blame themselves for mismanagement of economic cycle."

Read the full article in the St. Louis Dispatch.