Insurers Question Claims Process In Boy Scouts Bankruptcy

The judge presiding over the Boys Scout of America bankruptcy is weighing a request by insurance companies for permission to serve document requests on 1,400 people who have filed sexual abuse claims and to question scores of them under oath in an effort to determine whether there is widespread fraud in the claims process.

The insurance companies maintain that tens of thousands of sexual abuse claims that have been filed in the case appear to be barred by the passage of time based on statutes of limitation in many states.

Thousands more lack essential information needed to determine their validity, such as identifying a connection with the Boy Scouts or the name of a perpetrator, according to the insurers.

In addition to wanting to question alleged abuse survivors, the insurance companies on Wednesday requested permission to question and collect documents from 15 plaintiffs’ attorneys who personally signed hundreds of claims.

Claim forms typically must be signed by the claimants themselves, but in the days leading up to the deadline last November, some attorneys signed several hundred claim forms a day.