Talk:Ecclesiastical Insurance

Text of merged article

The Claimants Bill of Rights is a non-legalese 'survivor friendly' version of Ecclesiastical Insurance protocol begun in July 2016 which relates to how insurers and solicitors deal with abuse cases. It was formulated primarily in relation to abuse claims within the Church of England and Anglican Church, to inform how other churches and their insurance companies respond to abuse survivors. It was arrived at by negotiation with a survivor as part of her settlement, with the help of a solicitor campaigner from MACSAS, an organisation which supports church abuse survivors. It covers such areas as fairness, respect and empathy in settlement process, pastoral care, access to counselling, statute of limitations, power imbalance, medical evaluation, Joint Settlement Meeting (“JSM”), confidentiality clauses.

Copied here for ease of reference.--Mervyn (talk) 15:59, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Ref for this if appropriate is: http://www.ecclesiastical.com/fororganisations/claims/abuse-claims/index.aspx --Mervyn (talk) 16:53, 25 November 2016 (UTC)

Link to Lycetts

Added link to Lycetts(new page) - one of the subsidiaries of Ecclesiastical.Joelionheart (talk) 11:07, 16 May 2017 (UTC)

References

Elliott Review. Criticism of Ecclesiastical & Archbishop Welby's office

New section added. Needs developping. But made a start.Joelionheart (talk) 17:42, 16 June 2017 (UTC)

Criticism by Bishops

New section addded. Hope it's accurate. Not yet complete and will almost certainly need further addition and editing. Sad to see branded logo disappear - I thought it was customary to have corporate logos on wiki. Apologies for my error. Joelionheart (talk) 20:13, 16 October 2017 (UTC)

Added new history section

To make it easier for readers and to add more context to the history of the company. Hope I have cited everything correctly! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.171.128.165 (talk) 09:37, 7 December 2017 (UTC) 108.171.128.165 (talk) 11:06, 7 December 2017 (UTC)

Updated history section

Added more detail and references to history section, particularly around founding members

Was unable to reference the specific PDF from Companies House but worth taking a look! Pauleccles84 (talk) 11:48, 19 January 2018 (UTC)

Infobox amends

Updated info box with founder info and former names as cited in history section and updated parent company and subsidiaries to accurately reflect structure. All changes made to ensure consistency with cited sources in the article.

Tried to add a logo but not sure of best way to do this as it was previously removed from WikiCommons, please can you advise the best course of action? Pauleccles84 (talk) 14:48, 26 January 2018 (UTC)

Core Groups

Updated Elliott Review section with cited reference to criticism of Ecclesiastical lawyer present at pastoral core groups. Joelionheart (talk) 14:41, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

References

Open Letter to Welby

New section added. Open Letter to Welby concerning amongst other things Ecclesiastical's litigation strategies, signed by 20 people including senior members of CofE Synod and a founding member of Archbishop's Council and others. Joelionheart (talk) 15:23, 14 January 2019 (UTC)

References

Affiliation to Church of England

New section added. With several references in media to confusion and uncertainty about its relationship to Church of England, this new section will hopefully clarify these questions. Have moved the Gloucester Cathedral celebration with reading of letter from Archbishop Welby to this new section - seems correct section for this citation. Hope fellow editors will agree. Joelionheart (talk) 23:20, 24 January 2019 (UTC)

Julie Macfarlane

New section added with hopefully accurate citations. This article has developed considerably since Jan 2017 and is likely to develop further with all that is emerging at IICSA - so it'll be important that the structure is able to properly contain various criticisms in line with other articles. Not sure whether this is best done by putting all the criticisms under one header. What do others think? Conscious that alot more work is probably required on the structure of the article so that it can become the best that it can be, which all editors would hopefully wish for, without losing any of the citations obviously. Joelionheart (talk) 21:50, 27 January 2019 (UTC)

COI

Joelionheart, do you have any form of conflict of interest (COI) in relation to this issue? I ask because it seems to be a large chunk of what you've written about on Wikipedia since you started editing. Please see WP:COI for the guideline. It becomes very problematic when writing about living people and such sensitive issues. SarahSV ^(talk) 22:04, 30 January 2019 (UTC)

hello SarahSV (talk), I represent the perspective and experiences of many who have been through Ecclesiastical's processes. I am in contact with many survivors of abuse in the Church of England, and together we are aware that the company may be very keen to re-write history and vanish the criticisms it has received which have been numerous. In relation to the Canadian professor, I am in direct contact with JM who made sure the references and sources for the edit were accurate. It is disappointing that her quote has been removed. But JM is pleased to see that both her criticism and her work on the guiding principles is now included. It is surprising the company itself did not seek to include any reference to any of this in the wiki article, especially as her criticisms were made at public inquiry level. And appeared in national media. Surprising too, as JM is a law professor and litigation expert with considerable recognition. It is even more surprising too that the company has made no effort to include any reference to the Elliott Review which received national coverage across all media at the time, and gave the company considerable criticism from an internationally recognised reviewer. Startling too that the company has made no inclusion of the Mandate Now criticism, given that their fears were accurately borne out by Eccesiastical's own statement at IICSA.

I always endeavour to make sure that my edits are accurately sourced and referenced, and that only public domain material is included. Incidentally, we are aware there are other editors on this page who work at senior level within the company. Their edits in the History section are word for word the same as their IICSA submissions - these are statements made to the UK government inquiry. They do not seem to get questioned at all, presumably because their edits are bland, uncontroversial, and do not incorporate any criticism the company is receiving. So the same issue is present there too. This company faces increasing daylight both within the media and at IICSA - and will no doubt be seeking to make sure these things do not appear on their wiki page. In particular, their close affiliation to the Church itself - something that both the company and its owner has been keen to deny and downplay at all times. We are aware that the editors on this page attached to the company will be unlikely to update the page with any of the public criticisms - which have been cited in mainstream media as well as growing number of subsidiary articles. They have not shown any inclination to do so yet.

And it may even be possible that their senior directors seek to contact wiki editors (without necessarily declaring their full involvement) to try and neutralise and vanish things that have been reported in mainstream media and in the government inquiry. So although I recognise the validity of your question - I do think that editors need to be aware that this cuts all ways and that survivors are facing powerful corporate forces and nested interest groups in this and other church insurers. Ecclesiastical is not the only corporate group under a microscope, but I know this company is in sharp relief at the government inquiry because of its very close relationship to the Church and the substantial amount of money the Church receives in dividends (running into many £millions annually) from its owner.If you look at the Talk page of its owner, hopefully you will see that I have considerable expertise in these things and can edit from an informed perspective. I hope this answers your question as fully and honestly as I can. I do not get paid at all by anyone to edit Joelionheart (talk) 17:03, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Joelionheart, thank you for disclosing the COI and for the explanation. The relevant guideline is WP:COI, which strongly discourages COI editing. The relevant policy is WP:BLPCOI (part of our biographies of living persons policy), which says: "[A]n editor who is involved in a significant controversy or dispute with another individual—whether on- or off-wiki—or who is an avowed rival of that individual, should not edit that person's biography or other material about that person, given the potential conflict of interest."

If you want to remain involved in this topic on Wikipedia, you should follow WP:DISCLOSE and use the {{request edit}} template on the talk pages to make edit requests. There is more information about the latter at Wikipedia:Edit requests. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:36, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Thank you SarahSV (talk) for your advice. I'm not sure how to interpret this if an individual is representing accurately the reports of the wider conflict with a corporate body? Can you, and any other editors, please advise and perhaps show me example of how this unfolds elsewhere in other wiki pages where companies receive considerable ongoing media attention for their corporate structures or their practices. I ask this because I know it's very likely that much more will be emerging at IICSA This company is under increasing spotlight. I'm one of the people who has been bringing very informed attention to the Inquiry about the practices of this company - which run counter to the stated policies of their major client Church of England, with whom they are very closely affiliated. Sadly I am at present the only person in our 'interest group' with wiki knowhow,and so I endeavour to make sure the page reflects more than just the puff the company wishes to put out publicly - but accurately records the very considerable conflicts it has with survivors. These conflicts are the ones this company will understandably wish to vanish. I am not at all in conflict with the Canadian professor. She helped me source accurately the references and made sure my edit accurately represented her well reported criticism of this company. I hope this question frames well what I am trying to ask. Btw, if you've seen the film Spotlight, you'll appreciate that church insurers eventually came under considerable criticism in the USA in the early 2000s. Perhaps some of the issues are similar. We will have to see what more emerges at the Inquiry. Thank you for any help.Joelionheart (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

@Joelionheart: the issue is that you seem to be using Wikipedia to advance a position in a real-life dispute in which you're involved. You seem to be writing about living persons with whom you're in dispute or connected to those with whom you're in dispute, and about others with whom you agree, in corporate articles and in articles about living persons. That is not allowed, especially not where financial compensation might be an issue (I'm not referring to compensation for editing). The best thing is to wait for other editors to add the material, or to use the {{request edit}} template, but even with the template please steer clear of issues about living people with whom you've been in dispute. SarahSV ^(talk) 23:18, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

Request for editors

SarahSV (talk) Further to above, can I request that a small group of editors including yourself, looks at possible re-dit of the issue of the senior Church of England clerics on the board of Ecclesiastical. This was reported on BBC, and elsewhere. And has been a significant criticism of this company. To exclude it completely as has been done, will be to rewrite history, and will serve to negate the necessary and often costly work that survivors have done to tackle many issues in this company. I am happy to propose a re-edit and have it checked by moderators such as yourself. I am not entirely sure how to request this help so hope this will be ok. I'd also draw your attention to the fact that the History section is very detailed - yet each of the criticisms is now quite small in comparison, and all quotes have been removed. I don't know how this sort of thing unfolds on other pages where controversial issues and media reports are edited into an article. But I think it's important that a wiki page needs to be able to clearly set out in brief criticisms levelled at it - especially where reported in national news. Otherwise an article simply acts as PR puff for the company, which it would obviously prefer given that it has made no attempt to edit any of these national stories about its difficulties into the article. Joelionheart (talk) 19:11, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

If you use the {{request edit}} template on talk pages, that should draw the attention of other editors. Suggest your edit, along with sources, and where it should be placed. If it doesn't attract attention, you can request help at an appropriate noticeboard, including WP:COIN. However, please don't write anything (on talk pages or anywhere else) about living persons if you've been involved in a dispute with them in real life. SarahSV ^(talk) 21:41, 31 January 2019 (UTC)

SarahSV (talk) thank you for this hepful and useful information. I did not know one could ask for editors to assist in this way. I'll try it and see what happens Joelionheart (talk) 22:44, 31 January 2019 (UTC)