No. CS/CS/HB 529
Filed under Healthcare.
Community-based Care Lead Agency and Subcontractor Liability; Removes liability insurance coverage requirements for community-based care lead agencies; removes liability insurance coverage requirements for subcontractors of community-based care lead agencies; removes requirement to annually increase certain conditional limitations on damages by specified percentage.
Plain English Summary
AI-GENERATEDCommunity-based care lead agencies and their subcontractors no longer must carry $1 million in general liability insurance or auto insurance for staff who transport foster children in personal vehicles. That coverage requirement is deleted entirely.
The caps on what an injured child or family can recover in a lawsuit stay in place: $2 million for economic damages, $400,000 for noneconomic damages, and $200,000 per automobile claim. Only the insurance behind those caps disappears.
Those damage limits used to rise five percent every year to keep pace with inflation. That automatic increase is repealed, so the caps will stay frozen at their current level going forward.
A new provision locks in whichever damage limits applied on the date an injury happened, so later changes to the law will not reach claims that already accrued.
AILead agencies were required to carry a minimum of $1 million per occurrence, $3 million aggregate, in general liability insurance as part of their state contract. That mandate, along with related staff auto-insurance requirements, is deleted entirely.
AISubcontractors that directly provide foster care and related services faced the same $1 million per occurrence, $3 million aggregate liability insurance requirement as lead agencies. That requirement, and the matching staff auto-insurance rule, is also deleted.
AINet economic damages remain capped at $2 million per claim and $200,000 per automobile claim, and noneconomic damages remain capped at $400,000 per claim, in tort actions against a lead agency or subcontractor, even though the insurance requirement is gone.
AISince 2014, the damage caps for claims against lead agencies and subcontractors rose 5 percent every year to offset inflation. That automatic escalation clause is struck, freezing the caps at whatever level they have reached.
AIA new section specifies that whatever liability limits were in effect on the date a claim accrued are the ones that apply to that claim, regardless of any later change to the limits.