Hi Nat80 I used to be a commercial insurance broker specialising in professional liability, business risks and what is now called governance. I’m still a professional member of the Chartered Insurance Institute.
Basically, honesty is always the best policy. Insurance companies have a database which they use to share information about claims. I would tell them, in writing, that there was this incident and you don’t know what the outcome was. If you don’t tell them, there is always the risk that they decide -in the future when you need to make a claim for something entirely unrelated to ipl - that if they’d known about the incident they wouldn’t have insured you. This allows them to declare your contract void This means that they won’t pay out for ANY claim and you basically don’t have insurance even if you’ve paid. So it’s never worth keeping quiet.
insurance is based on the principle of “utmost good faith”. It means that if you want the Insurer to pay ANY claim you must tell them everything they need to know. All insurance requires you to disclose “material facts” and a fact is “material” if it affects the judgement of the Insurer after it’s disclosed. Very often disclosure makes no difference at all when the insurance company is all keen to take your money. It’s when you want them to pay you that they get all uppity and insist that they would never have accepted the contract.
it’s no different to our industry when you ask clients about health conditions and they only tell you what they think you need to know, and then say (after there’s an issue) “well I didn’t think it made a difference”. An insurance proposal form and a consultation questionnaire cover the main points, but there’s always a requirement to mention anything relevant, and something that potentially makes a difference is relevant.
Accidents and errors of judgement happen. It’s how we learn and it was years ago. An insurance company will know that you’ll be extra careful with all of your treatments because of this experience.