ZGram - 9/19/2003 - "The Holocaust Industry - operating in the Red!"

[zgrams at zgrams.zundelsite.org]

ZGram - Where Truth is Destiny:  Now more than ever!

September 19, 2003

Good Morning from the Zundelsite:

Just this:  Can you imagine collecting from an insurance company 
without having to supply any names?

[START]

Holocaust Insurance Effort Is Costing More Than It Wins

by Joseph B Treaster

WASHINGTON, Sept. 16 - Lawrence S. Eagleburger, 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.

[END]