The University of Washington’s professional liability insurance program extends worldwide to cover approved sites of practice. However, other countries’ insurance regulations may require local insurance coverage as well as imposing temporary licensure requirements. Your department may be required to purchase local professional liability insurance and pay licensure fees to cover your practice at a foreign site before Site of Practice approval is granted. Please see the UW Sites of Practice Website (requires UW NetID login) for complete policies and to apply.

The insurance requirements of some countries are already known and can be found here. If a UW local policy has already been purchased, we may be able to add your proposed practice to that policy. Please have your department administrator contact the UW department listed as the purchaser for information on cost sharing before requesting addition to an existing policy.

If the country you will be visiting is not on this list, your host institution or organization will usually be the best source of information regarding local requirements. Please ask them for the following information:

  1. How are proper medical licensing requirements being addressed?
  2. Will your host institution/organization provide professional liability coverage for your practice at this site?
  3. Does the country allow coverage by US insurance, or must insurance be purchased locally? (Note: The Risk Services may be able to assist with this question once information regarding the previous two questions is available.)

If foreign coverage is needed for SOP approval and cannot be provided by the host institution, the Risk Services will use UW’s network of insurance brokers to purchase coverage. Coverage placements at a foreign location usually take 3-4 weeks to complete.