Facing rising insurance and litigation costs as a result of a state law that made it easier to sue for alleged child sexual assault, California school districts have been forced to look as far afield as Bermuda and London to get cover.

The San Francisco Chronicle has reported that litigation costs are rising so dramatically that schools and local governments have been forced to seek insurance coverage overseas.

The newspaper said that since the state laws passed, many American insurers have stopped covering school districts in California, leaving the Schools Excess Liability Fund scrambling to find coverage overseas.

Before the legislation took effect, all of the fund’s insurance providers were American, but now officials say some 70 per cent of the organisation’s insurers contracts are in Britain and Bermuda.

The law took effect in 2020, resulting in a rash of people claiming they had been abused in their childhood and that institutions had often looked the other way.

It aims to provide greater legal recourse for survivors of childhood sexual abuse, now referred to as childhood sexual assault.

The extended statute of limitations has meant that victims could file civil lawsuits for childhood sexual assault 22 years after reaching their 18th birthday — the age of legal adulthood — and in some cases even later.

Other features include a trebling of damages if a defendant is found to have concealed or covered up the abuse.

California’s school districts pool insurance to cover large liability claims. But costs are increasing, even for schools that face no such lawsuits.

Districts are now being squeezed, delaying raises or staff hiring, as they face tripling insurance costs and other expense increases.