Message to OTSIS members, 14.08.20

Dear member,

It’s been just over a week now since we announced to OTSIS members that we’re changing our brokers. We’re keen not to bombard you and overload you with messages, but we’re aware that the team from MPIG have been contacting our members and actively trying to encourage people to leave OTSIS and to take up a stand-alone policy through MPIG/Gallagher instead. We are not surprised by this but there are some important points that we need to clarify and emphasise.

The most important point is that your insurance policy is with an underwriter and the broker acts as a middleman between you and the underwriter. As such, changing broker will not impact your insurance policy in any way.

We have already explained why we are moving away from MPIG, but just to reiterate the main points:

  • The level of admin service that some of our members have received has been particularly substandard.
  • We have been unable to effectively communicate with our members and feel that our communications have been censored.
  • MPIG have done very little to assist OTSIS in negotiating concessions for our members with the Underwriters with respect to our massive loss of earnings during the current COVID crisis.
  • The OTSIS Board feel that MPIG has hampered our attempts to grow and develop OTSIS for the benefit of its members.
  • As our broker and with access to our members, MPIG has had the ability to offer OTSIS members competing stand-alone policies with Gallagher. This has been of financial benefit to MPIG alone and undermined OTSIS as an organisation and would have continued to do so.

The Board has not taken the decision to part company with MPIG lightly; we were fully aware of how they were likely to react. However, we feel that the necessary level of co-operation and trust is definitely lacking, and we feel that it would be near-impossible to achieve OTSIS’ various aims by remaining with this particular broker.

At present, OTSIS has over 100 members, and as a group we have ‘buying power’ and leverage to negotiate better deals and better terms for our members. In addition, and importantly, being in a group allows us to have a Board of members, whose role it is to oversee things in order to ensure that the best interests of members are served at all times. Importantly, apart from Gerard Panting (who is the OTSIS founder and who is a qualified doctor, a qualified lawyer and an ex-Director in the MPS), your Board are all also members, and fellow ‘jobbing’ orthopods, and in exactly the same boat as all of you.

The Board has already found an alternative Broker with whom we feel we can take things forward in a far more constructive fashion, and we are already working on potential options to provide added benefits for OTSIS members and potential solutions to some of the financial difficulties that many of us are now facing. Our new arrangements will include a free medicolegal advisory service for members, just as we all have currently. Importantly, however, we are not in a position to be able to share any details of these developments with you just yet, as we are currently subject to the terms of a 30-day period of notice with our contract with MPIG, and we are not intending to do anything which would or could be a breach of that contract.

We will therefore be able to communicate with our members freely and openly from 5th September onwards, and we will be sending out a further update then. In the meantime, OTSIS has instructed a member of the team to call members on the Board’s behalf to answer any questions they may have.

In the meantime… if you haven’t yet heard from MPIG, then you no doubt will. And if you have already, then you most probably will again! Remember, your current insurance policy is unaffected and you will have exactly the same ongoing cover regardless of the change to our broker. If you are about to renew imminently (within the next few weeks), then please simply go ahead and do so – but just insist to MPIG that you wish to remain a member of OTSIS: if they refuse or are obstructive please do let us know!

Clearly, it is your right to pick and choose whichever provider suits you best for your medical negligence insurance; however, be aware that as part of a larger group with a Clinical Board providing scrutiny and oversight, we believe that membership of OTSIS provides each of us with added value and something that is more than and better than just a regular stand-alone policy. It’s not just about the cost of the cover that each of us are obliged to have; it’s also about the quality of the product and the quality of service you receive.

As explained above, we will be in touch with you with further details on 5th September (as soon as we are allowed to!) – but in the meantime, any one of your Clinical Board would be more than happy to chat to you anytime, and if you would like to get in touch then please either e-mail us at:

board@wordpress-968631-3386515.cloudwaysapps.com

or you can ring us on:

0207 9657501

The OTSIS Board
Mr Ian McDermott
Dr Gerard Panting
Mr Gavin de Kiewiet
Mr Garth Allardyce
Mr Joel Melton
Mr Oliver Donaldson