Indemnity cover for nurses is frequently held in two or three places at once and understood in none of them. The useful first step is not to buy anything but to check what employment, union membership and any professional association already provide, and then to see what is left.
Check the employment
Ask what the employer's arrangement covers, in whose name, and whether it extends to representation at a fitness to practise hearing. Employers answer their own liability for work done in the role, and the hearing question is the one most likely to produce a surprising answer.
Check the membership
Unions and professional associations for nurses frequently include indemnity or offer it at a member rate, and many registrants are already covered without realising. Read what the membership actually includes rather than assuming, because the inclusions differ between bodies.
What is professional indemnity insurance for nurses?
It is the arrangement that answers for a claim arising from your practice as a nurse. It can come from your employer, from union or professional association membership, or from a policy you buy yourself, and many registrants hold more than one without realising. What matters is whether, taken together, they cover your whole scope of practice, including any hearing.
Where employer cover stops
NHS and most employer arrangements cover the employer's liability for work done in that role. They frequently do not extend to representation at a fitness to practise hearing, to agency or bank shifts elsewhere, to private or voluntary work, or to a claim arising after you have left. Those four gaps are what personal cover is bought to close.
What registration requires: an appropriate indemnity arrangement
Registered nurses and midwives must have an appropriate indemnity arrangement in place as a condition of registration, covering the scope of their practice. The regulator does not name a product: it requires that the arrangement is appropriate and that the registrant has satisfied themselves it is, which puts the check on the individual rather than on the employer. Registered nurse professional indemnity insurance bought personally is one way to meet it, alongside employment and membership arrangements.
Questions people ask about indemnity cover for nurses
Where do I start?
By checking what your employment and your membership already provide, before buying anything. Many registrants are covered twice.
What question matters most?
Whether representation at a fitness to practise hearing is included, because that is the most likely expensive event.
Do nurses need professional indemnity insurance?
Registered nurses must have an appropriate indemnity arrangement covering their scope of practice as a condition of registration. It does not have to be a personal policy: employment or membership can provide it, and you are responsible for checking that it does.
Is professional liability insurance for nurses the same thing?
The regulator here speaks of an indemnity arrangement rather than a named product. Whatever it is called, the test is the same: it must be appropriate to the scope of your practice, wherever it comes from.