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When it comes to insurance, when does prudence
override charity?
By Peter J. Vogelzang
As a part of providing insurance to many churches, questions are
periodically addressed to us on how church boards should deal with
certain situations, where insurance coverages are concerned.
One recent question was, "Where does a church's insurance
stand, when a person who in the past had problems with pedophilia
but now professes to have accepted Christ as his Saviour, would
like to be involved in children's ministry?"
From a church board's point of view, obviously a real problem is
presented. On one hand, the person has a serious problem, which
the majority of the medical profession feels is incurable, and on
the other hand, as Christians, we believe in the saving and healing
power of Jesus Christ, and hence, His ability to provide a "cure"
for the pedophilia problem as well.
Unfortunately, there are certain problems in life where the Lord
can heal but at the same time if one knows that one has a weakness
in an area, prudence demands that one creates conditions to minimize
the chance of being tempted and/or sin again. For instance, if one
is an alcoholic, and because of God's grace has conquered alcoholism,
prudence would demand that one abstains from alcohol. Similarly,
if one has a problem with pornography one does not buy Playboy magazines
etc. The same line of reasoning should be used with pedophilia.
Setting aside the spiritual aspect and look at the problem from
an insurance point of view, some principles in law apply here.
- Under the better church liability wordings the church is covered
for legal liability arising from "Accidental death or injury
or property damage." The better policies have no specific
exclusion eliminating coverage for physical or sexual abuse that
injure anyone Accidentally. The word "accidental" would
normally be interpreted "without knowledge of the church."
- All insurance is effected subject to the legal principle of
"uberrimae fides" i.e. absolute good faith between both
parties; in the case of a church, the church and the insurance
company. The church has the obligation to make the insurance company
aware of any aspect of the risk being insured, in order to give
the insurance company a chance to assess whether or not they would
be prepared to insure it, and if so, at what price.
Chances are that would the insurance company have known of the
pedophile potential problem, they would not want to insure it. By
extension, this would also mean that should the company not have
been told of this aspect, they could refuse paying for a claim should
one arise.
Switching to the spiritual side of the problem again, if a person
truly claims to have been delivered from the
pedophile problem and born again, the Spirit would usually put it
in his heart to not be a stumbling block to his brother. Nor would
he want to place his church into a difficult position from an insurance
point of view. Hence, in line with the principle outlined in Romans
14:15-23; 15:1-4, that person would prefer to not be in a position
involving the dealing with children, for the sake of peace alone.
Similarly, considering all things, should the person still insist
that as a reborn Christian he has the same rights as anyone else,
there could be good reason to be extra cautious.
Finally, one of the leading churches insurers, Ecclesiastical Insurance,
has recently introduced a claims made unique policy wording dealing
with the whole aspect of physical and sexual abuse. It replaces
any other policy wordings they used. The policy may be bought by
itself, or as a part of a comprehensive
church package.
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