When the Insurance You Have Isn’t the Insurance You Need: What the Darlington School Ruling Means for Your Organization

In early March, the Georgia Court of Appeals issued a ruling that youth-serving organizations should note. The case — Darlington School v. Philadelphia Indemnity et al. — reversed a $345 million judgment against five insurance carriers, finding that policies written decades after abuse occurred cannot be stretched to cover that historic harm.

The decision makes sense as a matter of insurance law, and it’s also a wake-up call for youth organizations. If someone claims abuse happened in your organization’s past — even long before anyone on your current staff arrived — your historic insurance policies sitting in your file cabinet today may offer you very little protection.

The Darlington School Allegations

Darlington School is a boarding school in Rome, Georgia. Lawsuits allege that between 1974 and 1994, a teacher sexually abused at least 20 boys. Students reported the abuse to school leadership, but the school allegedly failed to take any action.

In 2017 — more than two decades after the abuse ended — Darlington sent a letter to alumni acknowledging information about one instance of abuse. That letter prompted approximately 20 survivors to file civil lawsuits. The school ultimately reached a $351 million settlement, contributing $6 million itself and assigning its rights against insurance carriers to the plaintiffs, allowing the alleged victims to seek the remainder of the settlement directly from insurers. The five carriers all denied the claims.

The insurance companies’ position was straightforward: their policies did not begin until 2010 or later. The abuse happened between 1974 and 1994. The only carrier that had actually insured Darlington during the years the abuse occurred was Lamorek Insurance Company (and its affiliate, Commercial Union), which became insolvent and was liquidated in 2011.

The plaintiffs’ attorneys tried a creative workaround: they argued that the “true” injury was not the physical abuse itself, but the ongoing mental anguish that manifested in later years — including anguish triggered by the 2017 letter to alumni. Under that theory, the contemporary policies would be on the risk because the “injury” was still coming into existence during their policy periods. The Floyd County trial court accepted that argument in 2024 and ordered Philadelphia Indemnity to pay $232 million, Zurich $92 million, and North River and Great American $10 million each.

The Appeals Court Ruling

The three-judge appeals panel unanimously reversed the trial court, holding that the injury — the abuse — occurred during Lamorek’s policy period. The fact that survivors experienced ongoing mental anguish afterward does not mean the injury “comes into existence” anew in each subsequent policy period.

The court was clear about the human stakes, noting in a footnote that nothing in the opinion should minimize what the victims suffered or the school’s failure to protect them. But it concluded that insurance contract language and settled principles of interpretation compelled the denial of coverage. No judge dissented.

Why This Ruling Matters for Your Organization

The Darlington ruling speaks to a dynamic that exists in youth-serving organizations of every kind. If abuse occurred in your organization at any point in the past — and that includes before current leadership arrived, before your current policies were written, and before you were even aware of a problem — the carriers on your current certificate of insurance almost certainly did not price for that historic risk. Like the Darlington carriers, they wrote policies to cover prospective events. They were not pricing for unknown harm sitting dormant in your institution’s future.

When a survivor comes forward — and statutes of limitations and changing public awareness mean they increasingly can and do — the carriers you rely on today may very well take the same position the Darlington carriers took: this was not our risk when it happened, and it is not our obligation now. The Georgia Court of Appeals just confirmed that position is legally sound.

That leaves your organization in the position Darlington found itself in: potentially responsible for millions of dollars in liability, with the insurer that wrote the policy in effect at the time of the abuse possibly long gone, insolvent, or unable to be located.

The Critical Importance of Locating Historic Insurance Policies

The most urgent practical takeaway from Darlington is this: you must locate and preserve every insurance policy your organization has ever held.

Even when a historic insurer becomes insolvent, as Lamorek did, that does not necessarily end the inquiry. In many cases, historic general liability policies:

– Remain valid and enforceable even if the carrier has since been acquired, merged, or rebranded under a new name.

– May be covered by state insurance guaranty associations even after a carrier’s insolvency.

– Contain “occurrence-based” coverage language — meaning coverage attaches when the harm occurred, not when it was reported or discovered. A 1983 policy may be directly triggered by abuse that happened in 1983. This is precisely why Lamorek was the relevant carrier in Darlington, even decades later.

– Can be used to fund defense costs even when the insurer disputes ultimate liability.

Finding these policies requires intentional effort. General liability policies from the 1970s, 1980s, and 1990s may be stored in filing cabinets, off-site storage, church archives, or with the records of long-retired administrators. They may exist only as paper originals. They may have been discarded during office moves or facility changes.

Your organization can take these action steps today:

– Assign a specific person to compile a complete insurance history — going back as far as records exist,

– Contact your current broker and ask whether they retain historical policy records or can assist in a coverage archaeology search,

– Check with your denominational body, parent organization, or accrediting association — they may have records of group programs or master policies,

– Search board minutes, annual reports, and budgets from past decades — insurance premiums are often referenced by carrier name,

– Contact former administrators, bookkeepers, or long-serving board members who may remember carriers, and/or

– Work with specialized coverage counsel or an insurance archaeologist if the stakes are high enough to warrant it.

Once you find them, store those historic policies in a secure, redundant format. Digital scans with off-site backup are essential. Organizations that can demonstrate historic coverage — even coverage from decades past — are in a substantially stronger position when claims arise.

The Georgia Landscape: When Claims Can Come From Decades Past

For organizations operating in Georgia, the statute of limitations landscape adds another layer of urgency to the insurance question.

Georgia’s Hidden Predator Act, passed in 2015, extended the civil statute of limitations for childhood sexual abuse in significant ways. Under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.1, a survivor of childhood sexual abuse occurring on or after July 1, 2015 may file a civil claim:

– On or before the date the plaintiff turns 23 years old; OR

– Within two years of the date the plaintiff knew or had reason to know the abuse caused injury — even if they are already over 23 — as established by competent medical or psychological evidence

For abuse occurring before July 1, 2015, Georgia’s retroactive window — which ran from July 1, 2015 to June 30, 2017 — has now closed. Civil claims for pre-2015 abuse are generally limited to those filed before the survivor’s 23rd birthday. However, the discovery rule for post-2015 abuse remains active. A survivor in their mid-20s or 30s who is only now, through therapy or advocacy work, connecting childhood trauma to its lasting psychological effects may still be within the filing window.

Note also the gross negligence standard embedded in the statute: under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.1(b)(3), when a claim is brought using the discovery rule and involves an employee or volunteer of an entity with a duty of care, damages against that entity are only available if the entity was grossly negligent — meaning the entity knew or should have known of the conduct and failed to take remedial action. In practice, plaintiffs’ attorneys undoubtedly will allege knowledge, just as the Darlington plaintiffs did. Subsequent discovery in those cases undoubtedly will focus on that crucial allegation.

The tension between extending civil windows for survivors and the insurance law principle that contemporary policies do not cover historic events is precisely what made Darlington so significant. Survivors have more legal tools than ever to bring claims. But the insurance safety net for YSOs has not kept pace with that expanding exposure.

The Larger Picture: Prevention Is Still the Most Powerful Insurance

No insurance policy — historic or current — is a substitute for a culture of child protection. Background screening, clear written policies, mandatory reporting training, two-adult rules, transparent grievance mechanisms, and leadership that takes every disclosure seriously are the things that prevent claims from arising in the first place. They are also, under O.C.G.A. § 9-3-33.1 and similar laws in other states, the factors that determine whether an institution is found to have been “grossly negligent” — a standard that can dramatically expand organizational liability even within the existing statutory framework.

There is not much you can do about your past child protection policies, but you can start today developing policies to protect the children in your care. To protect your organization from its past, locate your old insurance policies. To protect its future, and the future of the children you serve, develop strong child protection policies.