Twenty men who said they were sexually abused at a prestigious boarding school in Georgia are now suing the school’s insurance companies for $345 million. The insurers argue that their policies did not cover the alleged abuse and that the statute of limitations has long expired.

The former students, who claimed abuse by a longtime teacher and dormitory supervisor at the Darlington School in Rome, Georgia, settled their lawsuit filed against the school for an undisclosed amount. A settlement with former instructor Roger Stifflemire did not require the man to compensate the students but cleared the way for legal action against the insurers, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution reported.

The 10 carriers named in the consolidated suit include Zurich American, Continental Casualty, Northern Insurance Co. of New York, Valiant Insurance, American Guarantee and Liability Insurance, North River Insurance, Philadelphia Indemnity Insurance, and Great American Insurance.

The companies’ policies covered Darlington School when Stifflemire allegedly abused students in the 1980s and 1990s, on field trips and on school property, the newspaper reported.

“Stifflemire, as a faculty member, was insured under those policies,” Darren Penn, the former students’ lawyer, told the newspaper.

Stifflemire is now 81 and lives in central Alabama. He has never acknowledged the alleged abuse, but his attorney said he has cooperated with the victims’ efforts to collect from the insurance carriers.

The alleged abuse was exposed in a 2017 Journal-Constitution article, which said the problems had been reported for years but the school had not addressed them. Stifflemire had retired by then, the criminal statute of limitations had expired, and criminal charges were never filed.

The lawsuits were initially filed that year and 2019 in the Superior Court of Floyd County, in northwest Georgia, but were recently amended and consolidated. The amended, 66-page complaint argues that the defendants, including Stifflemire, the school, school officials and the insurers, “negligently misrepresented and fraudulently concealed the true nature of the horrific events described in this complaint and the failure to investigate, verify and prosecute sexual abuse.”

The plaintiffs said they were not made aware of the cover-up until after the newspaper article and a subsequent letter from Darlington School officials in 2017. And because the letter contained misrepresentations that has led to new harm, the statute of limitations should not begin to run until 2017, the victims’ attorneys said in the complaint.

The insurance carriers had a duty to defend the school and its teacher, the suit charges.

“Instead of providing a defense under a reservation of rights and seeking a declaratory judgment, insurance defendants wrongfully refused to indemnify or defend based upon their mistaken belief that the claims against its insureds were excluded from the policies’ scope of coverage,” the complaint reads.

By refusing to defend, the insurers have effectively assigned all rights to insurance benefits to the student victims, the suit said. “As the owner of the right to the insurance benefits, insurance defendants are legally obligated to provide all available insurance benefits under the policies to plaintiff,” it argues.

In its answer to the complaint, Zurich American argued that the statute of limitations does, in fact, bar legal actions; that benefits are not payable under the terms of the school’s policy; and that the insurer did not breach any contractual duties. Zurich also denied knowledge of or denied outright that it was responsible for Darlington officials’ failure to warn or to provide better security at the school.

One insurer, Northern Insurance of New York, no longer exists but in 2015 merged with Maryland Casualty, a Zurich subsidiary, Zurich’s answer shows.

The insurers have asked that the suit against them be dismissed.