FAPDS (French guarantee fund for losses from prevention, diagnosis or care)

FAPDS is the French public fund that takes over from a private-practice health professional's insurer once the policy runs out. It was born of a specific fear among obstetricians and anesthesiologists in the mid-2000s. A birth with oxygen deprivation, a severely disabled child, lifetime attendant care: awards were running above the 3 million euro statutory limit, and the physician answered for the rest out of personal assets. Article 146 of the 2012 budget law created the fund and handed its management to the Caisse centrale de réassurance. It responds to claims filed from January 1, 2012, in two situations. The first is exhaustion of the limit. The second is expiry of the extended reporting period, the window during which a claims-made policy still responds after the practitioner retires. The same reform raised the statutory minimum limits: a decree of December 29, 2011, lifted them from 3 to 8 million euros per claim, and from 10 to 15 million per policy year. The fund is financed by a flat annual levy that each practitioner pays with the premium, announced at launch at 15 to 25 euros depending on specialty. For the underwriter, FAPDS caps market exposure at the policy limit; it leaves the serial loss question intact, since related claims remain one loss under Article L. 251-2 of the Insurance Code. Not to be confused with ONIAM, which pays for no-fault accidents.