UK Indemnity & Insurance for Visiting Specialists

Practising medicine in the UK without appropriate indemnity cover is not a grey area — it is a serious professional and legal risk. Every doctor seeing patients in the UK, regardless of whether they are a permanent resident or a visiting specialist, is required to have adequate indemnity in place. For Turkish doctors whose existing malpractice insurance was arranged in Turkey, the coverage almost certainly does not extend to UK practice — and assuming it does without checking is the kind of oversight that can have significant consequences.

Medical indemnity in the UK operates differently from many other countries. The market is dominated by a small number of specialist medical defence organisations and insurers, each with their own coverage structures, claim handling processes and membership requirements. Understanding which type of cover is appropriate for your specialty, your intended scope of practice and your visiting schedule — and then obtaining it correctly — requires navigating a market that is not designed to be straightforward for international doctors.

Medivoyage provides practical guidance on UK indemnity and insurance requirements for visiting specialists. We help you understand what is required, what the options are and how to approach obtaining appropriate cover for your specific situation. As with GMC guidance, we are not a regulated insurance broker and we do not sell or arrange cover directly — but we have working knowledge of the landscape, relationships with specialist advisers and a clear view of what visiting specialists in our network have needed in practice. Our goal is to make sure you arrive in London properly covered, not to discover a gap in your protection after something has gone wrong.