By Daniel Payne
CNA Staff, Jun 3, 2025 /
15:50 pm
A victim advocacy group launched an ad campaign urging New York Gov. Kathy Hochul to force insurance companies to pay millions of dollars in abuse claims, slamming the governor for allegedly “stand[ing] with her big insurance buddies” instead of abuse victims.
The Coalition for Just and Compassionate Compensation, which started in 2023 to pressure insurance companies to pay abuse claims under the state’s Child Victims Act, began running ads in upstate New York markets this week.
“Who turns their back on over 14,000 survivors of child sex abuse? Gov. Kathy Hochul,” an ad states, claiming the Democratic governor “stands with her big insurance buddies [who are] denying responsibility while donating to her campaign.”
The ad features headlines from news stories of abuse scandals, including one that references the Diocese of Buffalo, which earlier this year said it would pay out a massive $150 million sum as part of a settlement with victims of clergy sexual abuse there.
“Call [Hochul’s] office. Demand she enforce the law. Make big insurance pay, not the survivors they failed,” the advertisement says.
Passed in 2019, New York’s Child Victims Act extended the statute of limitations involving child sex abuse cases so that victims can file civil lawsuits against both abusers and institutions until the victims themselves are 55 years old.
It is not just victim advocates who have called for insurers to pay abuse claims in both New York and elsewhere.
New York archbishop Cardinal Timothy Dolan last year said the archdiocese was launching a lawsuit against its longtime insurer in response to an alleged attempt by the company “to evade their legal and moral contractual obligation” to pay out financial claims to sex abuse victims.
The Archdiocese of Baltimore similarly sued numerous insurers last year over their alleged failure to pay for abuse claims stretching back several decades.
And earlier this year the Diocese of Trenton, New Jersey, sued its insurance provider over allegations that the company was refusing to pay out sexual abuse claims under that state’s own Child Victims Act.
Neither the New York victims’ group nor the governor’s office responded to requests for comment on the campaign.
Daniel Payne is a senior editor at Catholic News Agency. He previously worked at the College Fix and Just the News. He lives in Virginia with his family.
