Premiums Continue Upward Push

 A protracted period of upward volatility in medical liability premiums has extended into a fourth consecutive year, suggesting a hard insurance market has spread across many states, an analysis by the American Medical Association (AMA) found. The prevalence of year-to-year increases in medical liability premiums between 2019 and 2022 has not been observed in two decades.

While the share of medical liability premiums with year-to-year increases was increasingly stable between 2013 and 2018, the AMA analysis shows the prolonged period of upward volatility began in 2019 when the proportion of premiums that increased was about 27%, almost double the rate from 2018. Between 2020 and 2022, roughly 30% of premiums increased year-to-year. The proportion of premiums with increases in 2022 was 36.2%, a higher rate than any other year since 2005. Among premiums that went up in 2022, the average increase was 8.1%. Read more here.