Betriebshaftpflichtversicherung

The Betriebshaftpflichtversicherung is the liability cover that a pharmacy carries as a business. It exists for the damage the operation causes to third parties, such as the customer who slips on a wet floor, the delivery that damages something, or the injury that happens on the premises.

The policy is written around the business and its rooms, its staff and its equipment. Professional liability cover is a different thing, written around the exercise of the profession 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, carried out in the pharmacy by pharmacy staff with a sharp. An existing policy may well cover it, but it may equally 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 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?

No glossary can say what a particular policy covers, because wordings differ between insurers and between years within the same insurer. The only answer worth relying on comes from the insurer in writing with the policy number on it, and a phone call is not that answer.

File the reply where the Aufklärung und Einwilligung forms and the written procedures are kept, because 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 that the Anamnese vor der Blutentnahme and the documented procedure are held to.