How to attach the massive armor piece? Collisions with the character body

So, I have a massive armor plate in front of my character’s groin area. This piece of armor is solid and intersects with both legs of the character during the running. I am a bit confused about how shall I attach the armor to the character to achieve accurate animations without intersections. The armor itself isn’t following any of the character bones. If I add collision to the armor directly, it falls down once get hit by the leg. But I kinda need to keep it connected to the character at the top point (where it has a fastening, but still being loose to the bottom. Shall I create a separate skeleton for this armor piece or can I achieve the result without additional bones? Any suggestions? Here is an example of the armor plate. On the reference, the plate connected to the vest, but in my case, they are separate pieces. Groin armor plate example