PIAA Changes Name to the Medical Professional Liability Association

Business Wire

ROCKVILLE, Md.--(BUSINESS WIRE)-- PIAA, the leading association representing the medical professional liability (MPL) insurance community, has announced that its members have voted to change the name of the organization to the Medical Professional Liability Association (MPL Association). The vote took place at the Annual Meeting of Members during the 2018 Medical Liability Conference in Orlando, Florida. The Association’s membership consists of U.S.-based and international insurance companies, risk retention groups, hospital/health system captives, trusts, and other entities that insure or indemnify physicians, hospitals, clinics, dentists, and other healthcare professionals for medical liability.

The change supports the Association’s continued growth, as well as its widely acknowledged leadership role within the healthcare community. It also better positions the Association to keep pace with the changes occurring in healthcare delivery and its membership. Key elements in this change include:

The organization will immediately begin doing business as the Medical Professional Liability Association or the “MPL Association.”
To accompany the new name, the Association is introducing a new tagline: “Analysis. Insight. Advocacy.”
The organization is unveiling a new, modernized logo.

“Speaking on behalf of the Board of Directors, I am excited about the new brand, and where it will take the Association in the ensuing months and years,” said Mary-Lou Misrahy, newly-elected Chair of the MPL Association Board and President and CEO of Physicians Insurance A Mutual Company. “This change, and our strategic plan, will best position the Association to assist members and at the same time support the profession of medicine as whole. I am confident that this action will help keep us on target for meeting the needs of the ever-broadening MPL community.”

Richard E. Anderson, MD, outgoing Chair of the MPL Association Board and Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of The Doctors Company stated, “This organization was formerly identified as an association of physicians insuring physicians—a perception that clearly set us apart and was an important aspect of our heritage. But we have grown to become so much more than that. Today, our members insure more than 2 million healthcare professionals around the world and more than 8,000 hospitals and medical facilities. Our new brand reflects who we have become through maturation over the years.”

“We are committed to ensuring that the MPL Association remains an indispensable resource for every group with a commitment to quality healthcare and a stake in MPL, irrespective of structure—mutual, reciprocal, RRG, captive, stock, or trust,” said Brian K. Atchinson, President and CEO of the MPL Association. “And the MPL Association will continue to offer programs and services tailored to meet the needs of all types of healthcare providers and healthcare systems that are covered by the Association’s members—physicians, hospitals, nurses and nurse practitioners, dentists, or others.”

“Our organization has expanded, in many respects, to stay in sync with the changes in the MPL community. And now, under the auspices of the new brand, we will be sending a clear and unmistakable signal that we are committed to representing the full breadth of our membership—and will continue our commitment to sustaining a capacity to respond to the membership’s changing needs, today and into the future,” Misrahy noted.

“Our core philosophy remains unchanged,” continued Misrahy. “This organization was founded to provide a forum for exchanging information and solving problems; to serve as an advocate for an affordable and dependable MPL insurance market; and to promote the practice of high-quality and safe medicine. These essential values endure in our new brand and continue to guide the Association.”

“Changing our name to the ‘MPL Association’ will allow us to retain the ties with our U.S.-based stakeholders, while also enabling us to encompass, and more publicly acknowledge, our global reach,” Atchinson added. “Today, we have international members doing business in more than 40 countries around the world.”

“The new brand strikes a balance among the many interests and stakeholders in MPL including physicians and all those providing care, the increasing scope of options for alternative risk financing, and the expanding MPL international marketplace,” he continued, “while also taking stock of the shifts within healthcare that are forcing an evolution of practice models.”

James Q. Swift, DDS, newly-elected Vice Chair of the MPL Association Board and Chair of OMS National Insurance Company, RRG, emphasized that physicians, dentists, and other clinicians remain a key part of the Association. “It is important to note that the significant healthcare professional component still is, and will always be, a bedrock element of our organization,” he said. “This name change merely lets us assume a broader role within the rapidly evolving healthcare industry.”

Brand Launch

Atchinson said the MPL Association will begin its rollout of the new branding materials immediately, with full assimilation of the name change, logo, and tagline, along with accompanying marketing support, anticipated by the end of the First Quarter 2019.

The MPL Association is the leading international association representing medical professional liability insurance companies, risk retention groups, captives, trusts, and other entities with a commitment to the quality delivery of healthcare. MPL Association members insure more than 2 million healthcare professionals around the world—doctors, dentists, nurses and nurse practitioners, and other healthcare providers—including more than two-thirds of America’s private practicing physicians. MPL Association members also insure more than 3,000 hospitals and 5,000 medical facilities.