February 26, 2025
NEW YORK, NY – Albany’s failure to hold major insurance companies accountable to cover Child Victims Act (CVA) claims is the main reason thousands of childhood sexual abuse cases have remained in limbo, Steve Jimenez and Kathryn Robb write in an op-ed published in the Albany Times-Union yesterday. Jimenez, a longtime advocate, author, and journalist, and Robb, National Director for the Children’s Justice Campaign, both filed their claims the day that the CVA went into effect, but they’re still waiting for justice six years later.
While New York’s political leaders were quick to hail the CVA as a victory, they’ve done little — if anything — to ensure the provisions of the CVA are meaningfully enforced. With no political will in Albany to enforce the law, predatory insurance companies have decided the law simply doesn’t apply to them, despite Department of Financial Services’ guidance instructing insurance agencies to fully comply with the intent of the CVA.
Since the CVA passed in 2019, the vast majority of survivors are still waiting for justice because insurance companies continue to refuse to pay claims, undermining survivors and standing in the way of justice.
Multibillion-dollar companies, like Chubb Insurance, have instead refused to pay out thousands of child sexual abuse claims, standing in the way of justice in the cynical hope that years of additional litigation will allow them to escape responsibility as they pad their record profits.
We know that corporate greed runs rampant across the country. What we didn’t expect was for New York state leaders to let insurance companies get away with it in our state.
Jimenez and Robb call on leaders like New York Governor Kathy Hochul to stand with survivors and give long overdue justice to victims of child sexual abuse, instead of caving to the interests of big insurance.
That’s why, as we mark six years since the Child Victims Act was signed into law, we ask Albany leaders to think of their fellow New Yorkers, who are survivors of some of the most egregious crimes in humanity. All we are asking for is the compensation we are entitled to under the law and to close this agonizing chapter once and for all. We are pleading with the governor and the Department of Financial Services to firmly support us in our pursuit for justice.
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The Coalition for Just and Compassionate Compensation (“CJCC”) is an independent alliance of survivors of child sex abuse, their representatives, and advocates seeking full restitution for survivors of child sex abuse. Among members of the coalition are author and journalist Stephen Jimenez, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse and longtime advocate who helped pass the Child Victims Act (CVA), and attorneys James Marsh, Founding Partner at Marsh Law Firm and Hillary Nappi, Partner at Hach Rose Schirripa & Cheverie, who represent thousands of sexual abuse survivors in litigation against public and private entities.