<
https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2023/may/11/state-governments-forced-to-indemnify-church-bodies-for-child-abuse-due-to-insurance-market-failure>
"State governments are being forced to strike confidential deals granting
taxpayer-funded indemnity to church bodies for child abuse after an inundation
of survivors’ claims led commercial insurers to abandon religious institutions
in droves.
In Queensland alone, the state government has now brokered temporary deals to
offer indemnity for child abuse claims relating to 18 organisations providing
out of home care and youth homelessness services, including Anglicare Southern
Queensland and another four church or faith-based groups.
The indemnity deals guarantee to pay out survivors on their behalf where
institutions are financially unable to do so.
The intervention has been forced by the sudden failure of the private insurance
market to cover churches and other non-government organisations providing out
of home care services and youth homelessness services over child abuse claims.
Insurers largely abandoned the field after landmark reforms in 2021 removed the
time limit that previously barred many survivors from seeking justice in the
courts. The reforms led to a sharp increase in child abuse claims.
Without insurance, state governments feared that church-affiliated and
non-government bodies would cease providing critical out-of-home care and youth
homelessness services. Governments like Queensland’s are heavily reliant on
non-government organisations to provide such services to vulnerable children."
Shouldn’t the government either be paying non-religious organisations that can
get insurance to provide those services or just provide them directly as public
services?
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
