Last week The Boys Scouts of America (BSA) have agreed the largest sexual abuse settlement in US history. A preliminary of $850m dollars has been reached for over 600,000 people bringing a claim.
This appears to be a startling figure but the reality for survivors may mean for some (if not all) under settlement because it must be divided between 10s of thousands of victims.
The Scouts in the US have already sought bankruptcy protection and I assume therefore, that the fund is not going to be increased.
Child sexual abuse (CSA) because of its very nature remains hidden for years, if not decades and so insurers will complain and maybe, with justification depending on your point of view, that they have had to pick-up the tab on policies where the premiums were collected with no knowledge of the risk of CSA. As a consequence, survivors and their lawyers often run into the problem of how to recover the compensation in the absence of assets and adequate insurance.
I argue that there should be on all insurance policies, cover for CSA. Of course, that comes at a cost, but it would be cheaper in the long run as evidenced not just by what has happened in the US, but also here in the UK where survivors must look to CICA and elsewhere for redress because those responsible for the abuser were uninsured.
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