From July 1, 2025, the Department of Health, Disability and Ageing introduced a professional indemnity insurance (PII) product for midwives providing intrapartum care. This insurance is available under the Midwife Professional Indemnity Scheme or MPIS and results in a PII product becoming available for all aspects of private midwifery care.
Alongside this change to the MPIS, the National Law insurance exemption for midwives providing intrapartum care and attending homebirths has been extended to 31 December 2026. This exemption has been extended to enable midwives to provide continuity of their service and minimise disruption to the care they provide whilst taking any necessary steps to meet the requirements of the new product. The new product is available through Miga, and eligible midwives are required to hold an Endorsement for scheduled medicines for midwives with the Nursing and Midwifery Board of Australia (NMBA). When the exemption ends on 31 December 2026, all midwives will be required to have PII for all aspects of their practice.
On 10 November 2025, Naomi Riley, Strategic Lead – Midwifery, Shevaun O’Loghlen, Policy Manager – Midwifery, Ahpra, Pedro Francisco, Assistant Director, Medical Indemnity and Eligibility Section, Department of Health, Disability and Ageing and Joel Tuccia, Policy and Advocacy Manager at Miga, hosted a collaborative webinar to discuss the recent changes to PII for privately practising midwives particularly in relation to intrapartum care, and the practical steps that midwives may need to take to adopt and/or prepare for the changes.
The webinar recording can be accessed here.
These changes are an exciting step forward for the midwifery profession but have also been met with some concerns. These mostly relating to PII solutions to support the continuity of services where the second practitioner/s attending homebirths are not endorsed midwives and private practice is not their primary context of practice. Whilst there is ongoing consultation around these issues, it is recommended midwives (including those attending births as the second practitioner) prepare to meet the requirements for PII for PPMs as has been announced to date.
