Betriebshaftpflichtversicherung

The Betriebshaftpflichtversicherung is the liability cover a pharmacy carries as a business. It exists for the damage an operation causes to third parties in the course of running, the customer who slips on a wet floor, the delivery that damages something, the injury that happens on the premises. It is written around the business and its rooms, its staff and its equipment. That is a different thing from professional liability cover, which is written around the exercise of the profession itself and the harm that arises from performing it. Most pharmacies hold both, often bundled in one policy from one insurer, and the boundary between them is drawn by the wording rather than by any general rule.

This matters the moment a pharmacy adds an activity the policy was not written for. A venöse Blutentnahme is a physical intervention on a person, performed in the pharmacy, by pharmacy staff, with a sharp. It is plausible that an existing policy covers it and it is equally plausible that it does not, because the schedule describes the insured activity and a draw may simply not appear in that description.

So the question goes to the insurer, in writing, before the first appointment, and it is asked specifically rather than generally. Is the drawing of blood from customers a covered activity under this policy as it stands. If a customer faints during or after a draw and is injured in the fall, is that an insured event, and does it fall under the operating cover or the professional cover. Are the staff who perform the draw covered in the roles they actually hold. Is a physician involved in training or supervision covered by this policy or expected to carry their own. What is the position on damage to the premises, and on a claim brought long after the appointment.

This entry cannot say what any given policy covers, and no glossary can. Wordings differ between insurers and between years within the same insurer, and the only answer worth relying on is the one that comes from the insurer in writing with the policy number on it. A phone call is not that answer. File the reply where the Aufklärung und Einwilligung forms and the written procedures are kept, since a claim will be examined alongside them. Insurance is also not a substitute for the underlying Haftung, which stays with the pharmacy either way, and it does not lower the standard the Anamnese vor der Blutentnahme and the documented procedure are held to.