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Wednesday, September 17, 2003 Holocaust
Insurance Effort Is Costing More Than It
Wins by Joseph B
Treaster  WASHINGTON,
Sept. 16 - Lawrence S.
Eagleburger, left, the chairman of a
widely criticized commission to help Holocaust
survivors collect claims from European insurance
companies, said today that his organization had
spent 60 percent more for operations than it had
persuaded insurers to pay in claims.
In testimony to the House Committee on
Government Reform, Mr. Eagleburger said that since
its founding five years ago, his organization, the
International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance
Claims, had spent $56 million
and obtained offers of claims payments of $35
million. He also said that while the commission had
received 54,000 claims that it regarded as valid -
a tiny fraction in relation to the millions of
policies that experts say were sold in Europe at
the time of the Holocaust - only 2,600, or less
than 5 percent, have received offers of
payment. Mr. Eagleburger said he did not know how many
people had accepted the offers. He said the
insurance companies had offered to pay an
additional $7.5 million on 650 claims that had
bypassed the commission and gone directly to the
insurers. Mr. Eagleburger said he was encouraged that the
pace of dealing with claims was increasing, but he
added, "The numbers are nowhere near where they
need to be." He said the commission had set a
deadline of Dec. 31 for survivors to file
claims. The commission was created in 1998 by American
regulators and Jewish organizations, and a
half-dozen European insurers agreed to join in
hopes of avoiding lawsuits. The United States
government has endorsed the commission as the best
hope for getting justice for Holocaust victims.
Most of the lawsuits have been dropped or settled,
but about 20 are pending against Assicurazioni
Generali, a big Italian insurer. Independent Holocaust experts asserted at the
hearing that the commission had been outmaneuvered
by the insurers.  Representative
Henry A. Waxman of California (left),
the committee's ranking Democrat, said that based
on commission data, the insurers reject five claims
for every one they pay.
"Denials do not have to be justified," said
Daniel Kadden, a former aide to the
insurance commission in Washington State and a
consultant to survivors. "There is no follow-up to
see that the companies act on the evidence
presented to them." A major roadblock, Holocaust experts say, has
been the refusal of the European insurers to
publish the names of owners of life insurance
policies sold at the time of the Holocaust. In many cases the owners died in the Holocaust.
Records of transactions were often destroyed when
families were ripped apart, and potential
beneficiaries have no way of knowing if insurance
existed. At first many insurers refused to pay claims
unless survivors could produce copies of policies
or death certificates. Now they say they will
accept less evidence, but survivors in most cases
must determine whether they might have a claim. In the hearing, Republicans and Democrats as
well as independent Holocaust experts expressed
support for legislation intended to force the
European insurers to publish the names of the
policyholders. Mr. Waxman and Representative Mark Foley,
Republican of Florida, have drafted such
legislation. But Mr. Eagleburger and a senior Bush
administration official objected today to forcing
the companies to publish policyholders' names. Mr.
Eagleburger said a listing would provide a jumble
of information that would be difficult to process.
The administration official, Ambassador Randolph
M. Bell, the special envoy for Holocaust
issues, said that requiring such a list "would not
get any additional claimants and would almost
certainly stop the current, now much improved
process whereby claimants actually are getting
paid." Mr. Waxman told Mr. Bell, "I don't see the
reasoning."  Mr.
Eagleburger said that the commission had published
the names of 500,000 policyholders on its Web site.
He said the commission had not determined how many
families in the Holocaust bought life
insurance.
Lawrence
Eagleburger urged Bar to turn blind eye to
thieving by Holocaust Museum's Neal
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Some
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A
Dutch insurance company AEGON stands firm
against the World Jewish Congress blackmail, and
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