Mazzotta: Awards Hammer Malpractice Premium Rates
Business First
November 29, 2002

There are times when Ray Mazzotta must wonder about his decision to leave the property and casualty business a few years ago and enter the world of medical malpractice insurance.

The president of Columbus-based OHIC Insurance Co. now finds himself leading a company whose industry has become the poster child for rancorous public debate in Ohio.

This fall, more than 2,000 physicians marched on the Statehouse, demanding lawmakers pass tort reform legislation that would cap jury awards in medical malpractice lawsuits. Doctors see such legislation as critical to stabilizing medical malpractice premiums that rose an average of 40 percent this year.

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"Physicians are desperate victims of insurance carriers attempting to make up their (underwriting) losses in the stock market," said Cathy Levine, executive director of Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio, an advocacy group for the medic undeserved.

"Wouldn't it be nice if all of us could recoup our losses that way," she said.

Levine pointed to a recent study by Americans for Insurance Reform that said medical malpractice payouts have been stable since the mid1980s. It also stated malpractice premium increases have followed the ups and downs of the overall economy over the past 30 years.

Caps on non-economic pain and suffering damages in malpractice cases, Levine said, are most unfair to people at the bottom of the economic ladder. They will be able recover much less in lost wages than higher paid professionals.

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