One of Canada’s largest liability insurance companies wants the Roman Catholic diocese of London, Ont., to return $10 million paid to the diocese for settlements to victims sexually abused by priests.AXA Insurance, now owned by Intact Financial Corp., accuses the diocese of hiding pedophile priests by moving them to different parishes or duties for decades, thereby misleading the insurance company and exposing it to greater financial risk.In documents filed with Superior Court in London, the company cites the cases of five notorious offenders, including serial predators Charles Sylvestre and John Harper, for sexual assaults against children and teens from the 1960s to the 1970s.“The Diocese of London, consistent with the policies and practices of the Roman Catholic church more broadly, engaged in a practice of concealing reports of child sexual abuse by members of the diocese’s clergy, and then assigning the priests in question to different parishes in the Diocese, thereby providing the priests with further opportunity to commit sexual assaults upon children within the new parish,” AXA court documents allege.In dispute is an insurance policy that the diocese says covered it from 1963 to 1971. AXA questions whether the policy ever existed. At the time, AXA’s predecessor insured nine other dioceses in Ontario.And if the London policy did exist, the company argues it was made void by the diocese’s failure to disclose abuse committed by its priests before the policy was issued and renewed.If the diocese had disclosed the information, AXA says it would have refused to provide or renew a policy, would have written in exclusions, or would have increased premiums because “this information dramatically affected the risk.”The diocese claims its insurance policy is valid and accuses AXA of acting in “bad faith.”The diocese initiated the legal battle in 2008 after AXA refused to pay two sexual abuse settlement clai ...
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