Liability insurance for Loyola New Orleans practicums

What the School of Nursing covers

The short answer: Loyola New Orleans covers you for malpractice during your clinical practicum hours, and you do not need to buy your own policy for them. The handbook states both points and adds one boundary that matters: work you do outside the practicum falls outside the coverage.

That boundary connects to Loyola's approval rules. Practicum hours begin only after your placement request reaches Placement Approved, and the graduate bulletin says hours done before the site's affiliation agreement is signed are forfeited. Informal time at a site before approval is not practicum time, and the handbook's coverage statement is written around practicum hours.

The same coverage applies whichever graduate track you are in, from the online FNP programs to the hybrid AGACNP and PMHNP tracks. Nurse Anesthesia is the one place where Loyola's documents add a twist, covered in the section on conflicting limits below.

Insurance inside the affiliation agreement

Coverage is written into the contract as well as the certificate. Louisiana's nursing education rules (LAC 46:XLVII.3529) require school-agency agreements to be written, to address liability insurance and to include a termination clause, and the 2026-27 Standard Loyola Affiliation Agreement states coverage terms of its own.

The agreement handles money plainly: neither Loyola nor the site pays the other, and students are not paid. Loyola faculty may visit under its terms, and the facility runs whatever orientation it judges necessary. Sites that prefer their own contract can send one instead, and Loyola's guides caution that a site's own contract, or a heavily marked-up standard one, can add months.

If your site wants its own contract, plan for that longer review from the first conversation. The affiliation agreements guide explains how to check for an existing agreement and why a backup site is worth having.

Practicum at your own workplace

Some Loyola students hope to complete a practicum where they already work, and Loyola separates the two roles. The Employed at Clinical Site Attestation keeps practicum hours in another department from your job and on a separate schedule; you, your supervisor and your preceptor or facilitator all sign it.

The handbook's boundary does the rest. Loyola's malpractice coverage attaches to practicum hours and leaves non-practicum work outside it, which puts your paid shifts beyond its reach. Keeping hours cleanly separated in Exxat and on the site's schedule protects both you and the site.

DNP students have an additional rule: the DNP practicum requirements letter bars an employer or direct supervisor from serving as the project preceptor. The working where you work guide sets out the attestation and those limits in full.

Why students let us handle the site conversation

We ask every site on your shortlist what proof of insurance it wants, in what form and by when, and we point it to the certificates Loyola posts. If a site's request goes beyond what the handbook describes, such as an individual policy or unusual limits, you hear about it before the Wishlist is submitted, with time to bring in the Clinical Practicum Coordinator. We run the same early check on every other item in Loyola's compliance list.

That early check is part of how we keep placements on schedule. Loyola's placement office and faculty decide every placement, and we bring them a request whose insurance questions are already settled with the site. The steps are on how it works, and the contact form starts your search.