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To protect themselves and perhaps ease their fear of litigation, some school psychologists purchase professional liability insurance. Prior to purchasing a policy, school psychologists should investigate what type of coverage, if any, is provided by their employers and whether any professional liability insurance is provided by their membership in a professional union, such as the National Education Association or American Federation of Teachers. Both the NASP (http://www.nasponline.org) and the American Psychological Association (http://www.apa.org) have information about professional liability insurance on their Web sites. Internship students are well advised to consider purchasing liability insurance (often available at a student rate) because they may not be covered by their school district’s policies.

In choosing an insurance policy, several points should be kept in mind. First, be sure to study the policy carefully to know what is and is not covered. Some professional liability policies cover school psychologists only when their services are performed during school-based practice. In other words, they do not cover private practice. Such policies are generally much less expensive than those that cover private work. Second, policies may be either based on claims made or occurrence based. Under the former, the practitioner is covered only if insured when the alleged malpractice took place and when the claim was filed. Under the latter, called an occurrence-based policy, the practitioner is covered as long as they were insured when the alleged malpractice took place, regardless of when the claim was filed. Third, many policies reserve the right to select legal counsel and to settle the case. This may be discouraging to practitioners who want their day in court. The psychologist may still hire their own attorney to work with the one supplied by the insurance carrier, but that is an additional expense (see Knapp et al., 2012, for additional information).