While the agreement does not take effect until it is signed, which could take a few more weeks, it shows the much-derided International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims has demonstrated some effectiveness.
ICHEIC will work with the German insurance industry to distribute $100 million for claims and claims-related expenses. Another $50 million has been set aside if more money is needed.
In addition, $175 million will be used for humanitarian purposes, though the details of that funding are still being ironed out.
The deadline for filing claims has been extended to March 30, 2003.
The German insurance companies agreed to investigate claims in accordance with looser standards and guidelines approved by ICHEIC. At the last minute, the companies dropped a demand to be reimbursed for certain expenses in processing claims, paving the way for the final agreement.
ICHEIC is composed of the Claims Conference, the World Jewish Restitution Organization, representatives of Israel, several large European insurers and American and European insurance regulators.
Both ICHEIC member Allianz and smaller German companies that are not part of ICHEIC agreed to abide by the terms of the agreement.
In fact, several thousand claims that had been submitted but not acted upon should be paid this year, according to Dale Franklin, the commission’s Washington chief of staff.
The agreement calls for a list of approximately 5 million major policyholders to be matched against lists of Jews who lived in Germany between 1933 and 1938. The results, which could take months to compile, will be published on the ICHEIC Web site at www.icheic.org
German firms are believed to make up about half of the total insurance market for the period in question.
Jewish organizations appear eager to move things along.
“We’ve waited 60 years and we have no more time left,” said Gideon Taylor, executive vice president of the Claims Conference. “We have to make this agreement work, and work fast.”
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