Place, Power, and Medical Liability Insurance in the United States

Abstract

Following the Western world's economic ‘crisis’ of the early 1970s and the related medical liability insurance calamity in the United States, new spatial and organizational arrangements emerged in the US medical malpractice insurance market. Reorganization gave a major London-based reinsurer—Lloyd's—a great deal of potential influence over the politically powerful US medical profession. At the same time as the prospects of control over medicine and law were being concentrated in London, Lloyd's was confronting immense financial difficulties arising from asbestos-related liability claims in the United States. Through the political influence derived from their economic connection with US physicians and malpractice insurers, Lloyd's seems to have been able to encourage US tort law reforms which minimize its profit-seeking underwriting members' exposure to asbestos-related and medical liability-related claims.