Malpractice Premiums Keep Rising, Despite Fewer Lawsuits Against Doctors

Even though fewer physicians are being sued for medical malpractice each year, liability premiums have still been rising, according to two reports from the American Medical Association (AMA).

The percentage of practicing physicians sued for malpractice in the past year fell from 2.3% in 2016 to 1.8% in 2024, according to AMA’s medical liability claims report. However, the share of premiums that increased year-over-year rose from 15.4% to 49.8% during that time, according to AMA’s medical liability premiums report.

“The overarching pattern … points to consistent upward trends in premiums not seen since the early 2000s, with select states seeing especially notable jumps,” wrote Allen Hardiman, PhD, the lead economist for the AMA and the author of both reports.

AMA president Bobby Mukkamala, MD, said in a statement that the “ongoing liability risk not only challenges physicians, but it increases practice expenses, reinforces defensive medical practices, and drives up healthcare costs for patients and families.”

Several malpractice insurance carriers and medical societies did not return a request for comment from MedPage Today by press time.

The premiums study used information from the Medical Liability Monitor Annual Rate Survey, which breaks down rates by geography for three specialties — general surgery, ob/gyn, and internal medicine.

Sharp premium increases began in 2018, with the proportion of premiums with any increase rising from 13.7% that year to 39.9% in 2025. Indeed, that was a drop from the 2024 figure, but whether that’s a sustained decline remains to be seen.

Ob/gyns and general surgeons faced the highest premiums. In Florida, for instance, ob/gyn premiums in 2025 cost $243,988 — the same amount as general surgeons in that state. Internal medicine premiums, on the other hand, maxed out at $59,736 in Florida.

Notably, California physicians generally paid lower premiums because of the state’s cap on non-economic damages.

One limitation of the report is that it’s not a true reflection of what doctors actually pay in premiums because it does not capture credits, debits, dividends, or other factors and noted that certain states were over or under-represented.

The report on lawsuit frequency was based on a sample of about 5,000 physicians from the AMA’s biennial Physician Practice Benchmark Survey.

It revealed that claim frequency against physicians has fallen over time, with 28.7% having been sued over the course of their career in 2024, down from 34% in 2026.

Another key finding was that the longer physicians practiced, the more likely they were to have been sued during their career. Almost half (45.2%) of physicians age 55 and over had ever been sued, compared with 11% of those under age 45.

Male physicians faced higher liability risk over their careers than females, although the fact that male physicians tended to be older and had practiced longer may have influenced this difference. Male physicians also tend to practice in riskier specialties, the report said.

About 60% of ob/gyns had faced at least one lawsuit during their career, followed by 53.1% of general surgeons. In both practice specialties, 75% of those 55 and older had been sued for medical malpractice.

Employed physicians reported they were sued less frequently during their career (25%) than did physicians who own their own practices (34.4%).

The report did not discuss how many lawsuits against physicians were settled before trial, but it noted that many lawsuits never get to trial. For example, 65% of claims between 2016 and 2018 were dropped, dismissed, or withdrawn and of the 6% that were decided by trial, 89% were won by the defendant, the report stated.