What is life science insurance and what does it cover
The life science industry is an umbrella term for a range of things within medical science. In particular, life science refers to something that has a specific impact on your life. Whether it is pharmaceutical drugs, medical implants, or even a health monitoring app, all these come under the life sciences. Like most industries, life science requires a specific type of insurance. This article will explain what life science insurance is and what it covers.
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What is life science insurance?
Life science insurance covers businesses in a manner of ways. One of the most common types pharmaceutical companies take out is product liability insurance. This essentially insures companies against anyone suing them for negative effects, suffered due to taking their medicines. These types of cases can be very costly, so it is in the company’s best interest to not have to pay out of their own pocket. Specifically, medical device liability insurance is a particular type of insurance relating to life sciences. This covers the company if any of their medical devices malfunction. Life science insurance protects medical companies from having to pay out huge sums in court cases, should anything go wrong with any of their products.
Why would you need it?
Companies need insurance as protection against huge legal payouts. If a drug that you have manufactured ends up causing someone serious harm, the amount that you would be liable for would be huge. Most companies would have this as standard, but if you are a small start-up looking into making a health app, you should make sure you are properly covered. Any kind of service or product that is related to a person’s health is going to be very contentious. If you are purporting to be able to improve someone’s health, and it turns out that you are making them sicker, then you will be in big trouble. Every company that is involved in life science needs to have life science insurance.
What else does it cover?
Although the primary purpose of life science insurance is to protect you against any liability, other things can be insured as well. Life science insurance covers the whole spectrum of life science infrastructure. This means that you can also cover all of your machinery so that you don’t have to pay for maintenance or repairs. If you have a delivery section of your company, you can get specific insurance to cover them. Life science insurance goes from hyper-specific to broad-ranging, which means that no matter what you are doing, you can probably get insurance for it.
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Pharmaceutical companies have been around for many years, but health tech companies are on the rise. With more people having phones and smartwatches that can track your heart rate, the quality of your sleep, how long you spend sitting down or moving around, there are new opportunities for providing tailored health plans to people. With the advent of this new technology and new companies wanting to get behind it, some may forget the legal implications of these types of products. Life science insurance is there to protect you against any nasty litigation you may encounter.
