Catholic Insurer Pays $30m to Vic Victims

Brisbane Times
April 30, 2013

http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/breaking-news-national/catholic-insurer-pays-30m-to-vic-victims-20130430-2ir2x.html

The Catholic Church's insurer has paid out about $30 million to 600 Victorian victims of child abuse, its CEO says.

Catholic Church Insurance CEO Peter Rush said the organisation did not make payouts related to offences that occurred after the date the church had knowledge of an offender.

He confirmed that his organisation did not insure offences committed by pedophile priest Gerald Ridsdale after 1975 when then Ballarat Bishop Ronald Mulkearns became aware of his offences.

Mr Rush said there were at least two confirmed cases, including Ridsdale, where they stopped paying insurance and said there would have been more.

He told the Victorian parliamentary inquiry into the handling of child abuse by religious and other organisations that compensation had been paid to 600 victims and totalled about $30 million.

Money has never been paid to a person who committed abuse, Mr Rush said.

The organisation began payouts in 1990, he said.

Mr Rush said about five per cent of the insurance claims had been denied, some because the church had prior knowledge of an offender.

He said the practice in the 1970s would have been to allow an offender to continue in their position.

But Mr Rush said this had not occurred since the introduction of Towards Healing and the Melbourne Response, the church's national and Melbourne systems for dealing with complaints.

Catholic Church Insurance national claims manager Marita Wright said investigations of cases where insurance was refused showed that in these cases a bishop had knowledge about a clergy member who had a propensity to abuse children at a particular point in time.