To the Editor:
The Claims Conference should have outsourced its claims processing years ago. There are many excellent firms that specialize in this work. It would have cost far less, the firms have sophisticated fraud protection in place like the credit card companies and if something like this happened, they would have had insurance to pay back the money to the fund or survivors.
Let’s face it, if the attitude was not so haphazard and lackadaisical at the top of the Claims Conference, this never would have happened. Are there criminal background checks on all employees? Are their fingerprints checked against the FBI? These are all standard in the claims processing industry.
Obviously nobody’s job depended on the safeguarding and accurate processing of the claims, otherwise there would have been many terminations of senior executives at the Claims Conference — and there haven’t been. Rather than treating its work like a sacred trust, the Claims Conference treats it like a personal business with no client who demands excellence.
Hire a PR firm to make excuses — great. But what is the fix?
I say, outsource processing to insured and bonded professionals and save money for the survivors and programs.
David Cohn
New York, N.Y.
