According to the 2011 annual report on medical-malpractice risk from the Florida Office of Insurance Regulation (OIR), medical-malpractice insurers saw their seventh consecutive year of profitability in 2010.

The study shows that the average countrywide return on surplus for Florida's leading medical-malpractice writers was 12.2 percent in 2010, up from of 6.6 percent in 2009.

In an attempt to put those percentages in perspective, OIR notes that the return on surplus is a national number that takes into account profitability in states other than Florida, and it also may be affected by changes in loss reserve adequacy. The 12.2 percent for 2010 also includes the profitability of other lines of insurance for multi-line writers. When the return on surplus is calculated only for those leading companies writing medical-malpractice in Florida, the return was 9.5 percent.