A spokesman for the Church and General insurance company said it had never seen Catholic Church records dealing with clerical child sex abuse cases. The company was absolutely certain it had never seen such records, "either specifically or in general".
The situation was that the church would supply information to the insurer, which was received in good faith, as in any normal such transaction involving policy-holders between client and insurer.
Nor did the insurance company see any records where settlements were agreed with victims, he said.
In such circumstances it would be notified of such cases by the solicitors for the church, as they came up and at a time when hearings in such cases were pending.
But there was no question of records in those cases being shown to the insurance company, he said. In fact Church and General never became involved in individual cases.
Nor was he aware of any suggested agreement between the church and the insurance company that all claims would be paid via the church, so that as far as claimants and their solicitors were concerned the payments would be coming from church funds.
He did not believe there was such an agreement.
However, it was rare for there to be discussion between solicitors for either side on where funds for settlement would come from in such cases.