Charity & non-profit organisation case studies
Chubb Specialty Insurance

Liability claim examples

A charity for the relief of illness cancelled a large contract with a supplier on the alleged ground that the signature on the contract, seemingly the charity’s director’s, had been forged by an employee.  The supplier sued the employee, claiming £150,000.  Settlement and defence costs paid by insurers amounted to £90,000.

Trustees of a leukaemia charity were tried and convicted of stealing money from collecting tins.  They received 15 and 30 month sentences.  On appeal, their convictions were quashed.  Substantial criminal defence costs were incurred to achieve the outcome in their favour.

A charity for the development of young persons dismissed one of its development officers following his police caution for gross indecency in a public place.  The charity felt this criminal offence had a direct bearing on his employment, but had to incur considerable defence costs all the way to the Employment Appeal Tribunal before finally defeating the officer’s unfair dismissal claim.

Crime loss examples

Through false estimates and other means, a scout group official executed 17 transactions by which he took £15,500 from the group.

A school for handicapped children discovered misappropriation of funds totalling £178,905.  A member of staff had siphoned these funds off over a period of 13 years.

The treasurer of a religious society pleaded guilty to 15 charges of theft and asked for 23 offences to be taken into consideration.  He had misappropriated a total of £170,000.

A local charity for the advancement of education in the performing arts lost about £200,000 to fraud by one of its trustees.

In Ghana, an employee of a UK-registered charity for sustainable development practices succeeded in making an unauthorised change to the charity’s local bank mandate (removing the need for withdrawals to be authorised by a UK signatory) and then helped himself to US$49,000.