The New York Adult Survivors Act (ASA) and Insurance Archeology
What is the New York Adult Survivors Act (ASA)?
In May of 2022, New York’s governor signed the Adult Survivors Act (ASA) into law. The ASA creates a one-year ‘Lookback Window’ which opens November 24, 2022 and allows those who were adults (18 and older) at the time they were sexually abused or assaulted to file civil lawsuits against their abusers and/or associated organizations – regardless of when the offenses occurred.
In 2019, the state of New York enacted the Child Victims Act (CVA) which opened a ‘Lookback Window’ allowing those who were children at the time they were sexually abused or assaulted to file civil lawsuits against their abusers – regardless of when those offenses occurred. As a result, nearly 11,000 lawsuits were filed.
While youth-based organizations, schools, and churches were a focus of CVA-related lawsuits, the ASA is predicted to impact a different sector of organizations. Since the ASA focuses on abuses against adults, it is likely accusations will be made regarding assaults at colleges, in the workplace, or healthcare facilities across the state of New York.
Pay for Adult Survivors Act (ASA) claims by finding historical liability insurance
Because these occurrence-based general liability policies never expire, if an organization hasn’t accounted for all of its coverage, it can benefit from PolicyFind’s acumen. Many times, however, our clients are defendant organizations who are asked to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to pay for a long-deceased bad actor. Simply, if your organization has been left ‘holding the bag’ for an incident that may have occurred before you or your current staff were even born, PolicyFind can help. If none, or just a portion, of your business’ historical liability program is known, PolicyFind can track down these valuable assets to provide compensation to the survivor and help your business access the coverage issued to it.
“Our firm has worked with PolicyFind to locate evidence of historical insurance for several of our clients. PolicyFind has conducted thorough investigations and provided positive outcomes for our clients.”
About PolicyFind
- Formed over 20 years ago, PolicyFind is a pro-policyholder Insurance Archaeology firm with an expertise in finding lost or mislaid historical general liability policies to provide funding for current claims involving allegations of sexual misconduct or abuse.
- Insurance Archeology is the practice of locating and retrieving proof of the existence, terms, conditions, and limits of lost or destroyed insurance policies. Oftentimes, our Insurance Archaeologists search for and locate evidence of insurance issued more than 50 years ago to respond to claims made today.
- PolicyFind boasts an 85% success rate in locating applicable coverage for our policyholder clients. We don’t count in our ‘win column’ those instances in which our investigations locate insurance carriers that no longer exist. Simply, if our clients can’t use the policies we find, we don’t count that as a success.
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While each investigation is unique and portions of our work are proprietary, PolicyFind has developed a linear approach which is comprised of a three-pronged strategy to successfully locate secondary evidence of historic liability coverage. The first phase of our work is best described as determining a baseline of information. Next, our Insurance Archaeologists, armed with decades of experience, put boots on the ground to locate evidence of insurance. PolicyFind conducts interviews and leaves no stone unturned in its search. Finally, PolicyFind creates Coverage Charts, Schedules of Insurance, and communicates with carriers on behalf of the policyholder. We have a dogged determination to uncover these assets and have the track record to prove it. In short, PolicyFind has the expertise to develop a sound strategy and creates pathways to cost recovery for organizations facing long-tail, legacy tort claims.