About DPL

In February 2008 we introduced significant changes to our subscription structure, which resulted in many members paying higher subscriptions at that time. This mostly affected those who were involved in those areas of dentistry that has resulted in a disproportionate share of our cases and case-related expenditure (implants, oral and maxillofacial surgery and orthodontics carried out in private practice by those who had not completed formal specialist training in the field - specified risk categories 1SP, 2SP and 3SP).Neither Dental Protection/MPS nor HKDA had ever been in any doubt that the changes were fully justified and necessary, but inevitably they were not popular with those members who had felt the greatest impact of these changes.

Good news
I am pleased to report that, for the first time in many years, many MPS/Dental Protection members will see significant reductions in their subscriptions for the year ahead. Some members are seeing their subscriptions reduce for the second year in succession. Three things in particular have made this possible :

Firstly, we base our subscriptions on the best available expert actuarial advice and ensure that we collect the required subscription pool overall to meet their recommendations. Because more members than expected have transferred to the new subscription categories and paid higher subscriptions since February 2008, we have collected more subscriptions than we had anticipated. But on the other hand it also means that we have more members that we imagined carrying out these higher risk procedures and in the years ahead we would expect to see this reflected in our case experience. It is too early to assume that we will not do so, given that the average case takes several years to come to light.

Secondly, we had consistently been setting our subscriptions at an appropriate level in the preceding years, so we had no deficit to make up. The correct subscription rate for the long-term protection of our members should never become a matter for ‘negotiation' - as a responsible and prudent indemnifier we need to collect what we need to collect - no more, and no less - if we are to be in a position to honour our commitments to our members. If subscriptions are always set at the correct level, year by year, you are never left playing ‘catch up'.

On the other hand, we must not and do not set subscriptions with the intention of making a profit, but only to provide properly and responsibly for the current and future needs of our members. That is why we will only ever increase our subscriptions when we need to do so, in order to protect the long term interests and security of our members, and also why we will not hesitate to reduce our subscriptions if there is scope for us to do so. This is a fair, proper and responsible way to treat our members who - after all - also own this organisation. When commercial insurance companies are looking nervously at their profit margins and pricing as they try to re-build their asset base from the shocks of 2008 and 2009, there has never been a better time to be a member of an organisation such as Dental Protection and MPS.

Targeted reductions
For the reasons explained above, the additional subscriptions in the past two years have not been contributed equally across the whole membership. The big surprise was the number of members moving into the 1SP and 2SP specified risk categories, and paying the higher subscriptions in those categories. It is these pools of collected subscriptions that we feel are higher than they need to be at the present time, and we feel that it is appropriate and necessary to adjust the relativities between these categories, and the rates on either side of them (the basic full practitioner rate, and the rate for oral and maxillofacial surgery). Those who did not experience the big increases in the first place, do not see big reductions now - but at least their rates are mostly frozen (on average, still at the rates set in February 2008).

 Click here to see the latest membership rates