NEW YORK (NY)
Wall Street Journal
Oct. 20, 2019
By Nicole Friedman and Ian Lovett1
New state laws encouraging child sex-abuse victims to come forward are expected to spur a wave of lawsuits against insurance companies.
Twenty-two states and Washington, D.C., have laws going into effect this year that extend or eliminate the statute of limitations for child sex-abuse claims against alleged abusers or the institutions they were affiliated with, according to advocacy group Child USA.
Most of these institutions, such as churches or schools, are expected to try to use liability insurance to cover some of the cost of defending against these lawsuits and paying potential damages.
But almost every aspect of these insurance contracts could end up under dispute. In some cases, it might be difficult to find a contract at all.
“The insurance litigation wave is just beginning,” said Robert Chesler, an attorney at Anderson Kill, which represents insurance policyholders.
Note: This is an Abuse Tracker excerpt. Click the title to view the full text of the original article. If the original article is no longer available, see our News Archive.