In all practicality, the Catholic Church knew of the child abuse going on (notice the number of “transferred” priests) and as such, once known and not attended to, the church waived it’s right to coverage. Let the church go bankrupt because of their malfeasance.
I agree, they knowingly put children at risk. The insurance companies had no idea about the abuse and therefore shouldn’t have to pay a dime. How would that even punish the church if they don’t have to pay.
You are not really punishing the church (priests) by punitive damges. It is the little old lady who can no longer go to daily mass at her parish church because it has been closed to free up funds to pay the abused person that ultimately is punished. This is the same as giving millions to the lady who spilled hot coffee in her lap. The cost of my hamburger went up to pay for the increased insurance premiums. All the lawsuites really do is line the pockets of rich attorneys.
I do presume we are talking about General Liability Occurance policies? If so wouldn’t the policies still respond as the abuse may have gone on and was knowledge to the Church, however no claims were made till recently. The insured (Church-Diocese) is asking the occurance policies to respond to known claims that are just being made.
There were no claims being made years ago when the abuse was being done just cover-ups which is a crime but not necessarily a reason to deny coverage.
This is very unfortunate for the insurance companies that covered the Diocese but still I believe there should be coverage if these are occurance policies.
Whether the policy was an occurrence or claims-made is irrelevant at this point, in my opinion. Regardless of that issue, most of these policies exclude claims for acts committed by the insured, or with the knowledge of the insured. Therefore, if they knew the abuse was occurring, that exclusion would stand. Furthermore, the abuse is a criminal act, and if it occurred with the diocese knowledge, they were committing a crime. So, I agree there should be no coverage in this case.
In all practicality, the Catholic Church knew of the child abuse going on (notice the number of “transferred” priests) and as such, once known and not attended to, the church waived it’s right to coverage. Let the church go bankrupt because of their malfeasance.
I agree, they knowingly put children at risk. The insurance companies had no idea about the abuse and therefore shouldn’t have to pay a dime. How would that even punish the church if they don’t have to pay.
You are not really punishing the church (priests) by punitive damges. It is the little old lady who can no longer go to daily mass at her parish church because it has been closed to free up funds to pay the abused person that ultimately is punished. This is the same as giving millions to the lady who spilled hot coffee in her lap. The cost of my hamburger went up to pay for the increased insurance premiums. All the lawsuites really do is line the pockets of rich attorneys.
I do presume we are talking about General Liability Occurance policies? If so wouldn’t the policies still respond as the abuse may have gone on and was knowledge to the Church, however no claims were made till recently. The insured (Church-Diocese) is asking the occurance policies to respond to known claims that are just being made.
There were no claims being made years ago when the abuse was being done just cover-ups which is a crime but not necessarily a reason to deny coverage.
This is very unfortunate for the insurance companies that covered the Diocese but still I believe there should be coverage if these are occurance policies.
Whether the policy was an occurrence or claims-made is irrelevant at this point, in my opinion. Regardless of that issue, most of these policies exclude claims for acts committed by the insured, or with the knowledge of the insured. Therefore, if they knew the abuse was occurring, that exclusion would stand. Furthermore, the abuse is a criminal act, and if it occurred with the diocese knowledge, they were committing a crime. So, I agree there should be no coverage in this case.