European insurers agree to pay Holocaust claims

MITCHELL DANOW
Jewish Telegraphic Agency

NEW YORK - In a major step toward settling wartime claims, four European insurance companies signed an agreement this week that will eventually provide millions of dollars in compensation to Holocaust survivors.

The agreement, signed Aug. 25 in New York City by the insurers, Jewish officials and U.S. insurance officials, came one week after Italy's largest insurer, Assicurazioni Generali, signed the same memorandum of understanding and agreed to pay $100 million to settle Holocaust-era claims. One week before that, Switzerland's largest insurer, Zurich Allied, signed the memo.

The companies signing the memo this week included Germany's leading insurer, Allianz Holding; France's AXA Group; and the Winterthur and Basel insurance firms of Switzerland. All of the companies are among 16 European insurers targeted in a $16 billion class-action lawsuit filed last year by Holocaust victims and their families, who alleged that the firms withheld, concealed or converted the proceeds of policies sold before World War II.

The memorandum, signed by the insurers in an effort to block the suit from going forward, calls for:

creating an international commission to probe the firms' archives for unpaid insurance claims;
establishing a claims resolution mechanism to settle the claims;
immediate contributions by the firms to a fund from which the claims will be paid and to a second humanitarian fund, similar to one created last year in Switzerland, to help Holocaust victims.

The international commission will comprise 12 members - six representing the insurers and European regulators and six drawn from Jewish groups, according to Elan Steinberg, executive director of the World Jewish Congress.

Steinberg, who called the signing a "major step toward justice," said the move is significant because it establishes a process for resolving survivors' claims.

"We can't simply settle" with the insurers, he said, because it is impossible at this point to know the exact value of the prewar policies involved in the claims. But he pointed out that preliminary assessments of the policies put them at between $2 billion and $2.5 billion in today's currency - 10 times their value in postwar dollars.

Earlier this month, Switzerland's two leading commercial banks agreed to a $1.25 billion settlement of claims dating from that era. Observers of the restitution process say that settlement also prompted the insurers to begin signing on to the memorandum of understanding.

The Swiss banks' settlement has also had major repercussions among German firms. Two of Germany's leading banks, Deutsche Bank and Dresdner Bank, have confirmed that they are negotiating with Jewish officials to reach a possible settlement. The banks face an $18 billion class-action lawsuit.

JTA correspondent Daniel Dagan in Bonn contributed to this report.

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European insurers agree to pay Holocaust claims

MITCHELL DANOW Jewish Telegraphic Agency

MITCHELL DANOW
Jewish Telegraphic Agency