A
wall-to-wall coalition of Jewish groups back a proposed provision to the
terrorism insurance act that would keep insurers from withholding insurance
based on a client’s Israel travel.
Insurers
often reject travelers who have visisted or plan to visit nations on the U.S.
State Department’s travel warning list, which frequently includes lists Israel.
“Some
travelers to Israel have been denied life insurance coverage even though,
according the best analysis of current data, travel in Israel is not
statistically more dangerous than travel in the United States,” said the
letter signed by 16 groups and sent Wednesday to members of the U.S. House of
Representatives Financial Services committee, which is considering the renewal
of the 2002 Terrorism Insurance Act. “According to Business Week, there
were 17 homicides per 100,000 people in the United States in 2002, compared with just 11 in Israel.”
The new
provision, authored by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), would require
insurance companies to provide a comprehensive risk assessment, as opposed to a
mere citation of the State Department list.
“We
urge you to act to protect travelers to lawful foreign destinations from unfair
and discriminatory insurance practices,” said the letter, signed by, among
others, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation
League and representatives of the Reform, Conservative, Orthodox and
Reconstructionist streams.
The
act federally underwrites companies that provide terrorism insurance.
