You have stopped practising. The clinic days are behind you, the registration is wound back, and the premiums should stop too. So why might a claim still land on your desk — and what protects you when it does? The answer is run-off cover, one of the most reassuring and least understood features of the Australian system. If you ever intend to retire, this is essential reading.
The problem run-off solves
Recall how claims-made cover works: the policy that responds to a claim is the one in force when the claim is made, not when the care was given. Now imagine you retire and your policy lapses, as policies do when you stop paying for them. A patient then brings a claim about care you provided years ago, while you were still insured. Under a pure claims-made model there is no current policy to respond — you have a live claim and no live cover. This is the “tail” problem, and it is exactly what run-off cover is built to fix.
Stopping practice does not stop the clock on a claim. Run-off cover keeps you protected for the work you have already done.
What run-off cover is
Run-off cover provides indemnity for claims made after you have ceased practice, in respect of healthcare you provided during your insured years. It is, in effect, the bridge that carries your retroactive cover forward past the point you stop paying premiums, so a late claim about earlier care still finds a policy to answer it.
The Run-off Cover Scheme (ROCS)
For most retiring doctors in Australia, this protection comes through a Commonwealth scheme. The Run-off Cover Scheme reimburses medical indemnity insurers for 100% of the cost of eligible claims against practitioners who have permanently ceased private practice. In other words, for eligible doctors the run-off tail is covered — and at no ongoing premium cost once you qualify.
ROCS is funded by a levy on the profession while doctors are working — the ROCS support payment, currently around 5% of premium, which you will see as a line item on your invoice during your practising years. In effect, working doctors fund the scheme that will protect them all when they eventually stop.
Who is eligible
ROCS is designed for practitioners who have permanently left private practice. The qualifying circumstances typically include:
- Permanent retirement from private medical practice.
- Permanent disability that prevents you returning to practice.
- Taking maternity leave (for an eligible period).
- Ceasing private practice on death, where claims fall to your estate.
- Permanently leaving Australia, in eligible circumstances.
The word that does the work here is permanently. ROCS is not intended for a short career break with the intention to return; it is the safety net for clinicians whose practising life has genuinely ended.
What it means in practice
The reassurance ROCS offers is profound: a doctor who has spent a career caring for patients does not have to keep paying indemnity premiums into retirement to stay protected against a claim about that care, and is not personally exposed if one arrives. It removes one of the quiet anxieties of finishing a clinical career — the fear that the past might follow you, uninsured, into retirement.
Where your insurer fits in
Although ROCS is a government scheme, it is delivered through your medical indemnity insurer. Insurers are required to provide eligible run-off cover, and a good one administers the scheme for you — confirming your eligibility, carrying your retroactive date through, and dealing with the scheme’s mechanics so you do not have to. When you stop practising, the last thing you should be doing is navigating Commonwealth scheme paperwork alone.
Planning your exit
A few simple steps make the transition clean. Confirm your eligibility category before you finish, make sure your cover has been continuous so your retroactive date is intact, and let your insurer know your intended cessation date. If your circumstances are unusual — a staged wind-down, ongoing medico-legal or expert-witness work, a partial retirement — ask how run-off applies, because the detail matters.
The takeaways
- Claims can arrive after you retire; run-off cover answers them.
- It covers claims made after you cease practice for care given while insured.
- ROCS covers 100% of eligible claims for permanently ceased doctors, at no ongoing cost.
- It is funded by the ROCS support payment while you are working.
- “Permanent” cessation is the key eligibility test.
Praxis administers ROCS for eligible members and keeps your retroactive date intact, so the protection is there the day you stop. Read more on the government schemes.