(JTA) — Legislation with bipartisan support that would restore the rights of Holocaust-era insurance beneficiaries to recover billions in unclaimed payments left behind after World War II has been introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives.
Due to federal court rulings and a failure by insurance companies to adequately publish the names of recipients and pay these claims, 97 percent of the approximately 800,000 policies held in 1938 have yet to be honored. The insurers’ unreasonable demands that death certificates and original policy paperwork be produced is all but impossible for survivors who, at the time, had just survived death camps, forced relocations, torture and death marches.
The Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2019 was introduced Friday by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Florida, and Rep. Lee Zeldin, R-New York. A Senate companion bill was recently introduced by Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, and Sen. Jacky Rosen, D-Nevada.
The legislation would: validate state laws requiring insurers to publish policy holder information; establish a federal cause of action in U.S. courts to ensure Holocaust survivors and heirs have access to U.S. courts; and provide a 10-year period of time for cases to be brought after the date of enactment.
“Preventing Holocaust survivors and their families from collecting on documented policies is truly outrageous and cruel, but allowing these global insurance corporations to hold on to this unjust enrichment is an offensive re-victimization that cannot be allowed to stand,” Wasserman Schultz said in a statement.
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