NEWS
House Foreign Affairs Committee
Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican
CONTACT:
Sam Stratman, (202) 226-7875, March 28, 2007
Lee Cohen, (202) 226-1139
For IMMEDIATE Release
Ros-Lehtinen Legislation Opens Door to Payment of Claims
on Insurance Policies of
Holocaust Survivors and Descendents
Initiative Co-sponsored by Reps. Wexler, Cantor, Pence & Chabot
(
The
legislation opens the door to the payment of billions of dollars in claims on
policies held by victims and relatives of the millions murdered in the
Holocaust.
The
initiative comes nine years after the establishment of the International
Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (ICHEIC). Critics of the
Commission suggest that it has failed to adequately address the insurance
claims issue. The ICHEIC process is scheduled to close later this year —at
which point Holocaust-era insurance claims can
no longer be brought—yet companies holding these policies continue to
withhold the identities of thousands of insurance policy holders.
“The
Commission has failed to put forth sufficient effort in making sure that names
of policy holders are disclosed and that claims are paid,” said
Ros-Lehtinen, Ranking Republican on the House Foreign Affairs Committee. She said that fewer than 5 percent of the
policies estimated to have been sold to Jews prior to World War II have been
paid through ICHEIC.
The
legislation is co-sponsored by U.S. Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL), Eric Cantor
(R-VA), Mike Pence (R-IN) and Steve Chabot (R-OH).
“While I recognize the strong effort made by the International
Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims which provided compensation to
tens of thousands of survivors for unpaid insurance claims – it is incumbent on
the United States and international community to provide an open legal avenue to
resolve outstanding cases,” said Wexler,
the chairman of the Subcommittee on Europe.
Following
the war, Holocaust survivors and the heirs of victims approached insurance
companies with claims, but many were rejected because of the absence of death
certificates and because of a lack of policy documents, many of which were
routinely confiscated or destroyed by Nazi authorities. In many of these cases,
insurance company records and records in government archives provide the only
proof of the existence of insurance policies.
“Although
it has been more than 60 years since the end of WWII, insurance companies and
many of the European governments have refused to disclose these documents,
prolonging the injustice,” said Ros-Lehtinen.
The
Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2007 creates a registry requiring
insurers to file with the U.S. Department of Commerce names of Holocaust-era
insurance policy holders which will be made public, something many companies
have resisted doing for more than six decades.
The
registry will offer Holocaust survivors and their descendants
actual proof of the insurance policy’s existence. Failure to comply will result
in civil penalties. The legislation also creates a federal cause of action,
which will allow Holocaust survivors or their heirs to bring claims against
insurance companies in
“We can
never ease the pain and suffering of those who survived the Nazi atrocities,
but we can end 60 years of injustice perpetrated against Holocaust survivors
and their families by insurance companies,” said Ros-Lehtinen.
Wexler
added, “Holocaust survivors and their families
deserve our deepest respect and understanding as they seek to close the door on
this dark chapter in history.”
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