The role of insurers in maternity safety

- Many adverse events in maternity care may be preventable.
- In England alone, <0.1% of births result in a legal claim, yet this equates to a £3.1 billion cost to the National Health Service (NHS) in a decade.
- Insurers could contribute in a multitude of different ways to improve maternity outcomes.

Adverse events in maternity care are frequently avoidable and litigation costs for maternity care are rising for many health services across the world. Whilst families for whom this injury was preventable suffer from this tragedy, there is an enormous loss of resource to healthcare in general. It is axiomatic that preventing avoidable harm is better for women, their families and society in general, and downstream this improvement should also reduce both litigation and costs. However, there are few initiatives that have reduced adverse clinical events in maternity services and fewer still that have demonstrated decreases in litigation costs. Where these data do exist, the involvement and engagement of insurers seem to have been crucial, but often unrecognized.Insurers could play a much broader role in preventing harm, and this article explores this potential.