More than a dozen insurers have filed appeals challenging the Boy Scouts of America's $2.46 billion sex abuse settlement, arguing that bogus abuse claims helped rig the deal against them, Reuters reported. The insurers, including Liberty Mutual, asked a Delaware federal judge to reverse a bankruptcy court's approval of the settlement, reiterating doubts about the number of abuse claims and alleged collusion between the youth organization and attorneys for abuse victims. The settlement, approved in September by Bankruptcy Judge Laurie Selber Silverstein, has the support of the Boy Scouts’ largest insurers and 86% of the abuse victims who voted in the youth organization's bankruptcy case. But it has been challenged by appeals from minority factions of insurers and abuse victims. Those insurers argued that "a significant portion" of the 82,000 abuse claims resolved by the settlement "are likely fraudulent." The number of sexual abuse claims filed against the organization skyrocketed after the bankruptcy filing, and little was done to vet claims, the insurers said. They blamed the rise in claims on plaintiffs' lawyers "who saw the bankruptcy as an opportunity for a windfall," and enlisted potential clients en masse, sometimes without contacting the claimants.
