Resolving Insurance Claims from the Holocaust-era

In the aftermath of the Holocaust, many survivors have brought lawsuits and started international initiatives to reclaim property that the Nazis seized. In 2000, the U.S. and Germany agreed to resolve all holocaust-era claims with European insurers and created an international insurance commission.

Resolving these insurance claims is difficult because many survivors’ proof of ownership was destroyed or lost in the war. Even when the International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance claims offered relaxed standards of proof, problems still arose in estimating how much total insurance was sold, and how to value it.

Despite these efforts, tens of thousands of people still haven’t received anything, so new campaigns are starting to try and get money to survivors before they pass away, or at least get the money to their survivors. Specifically, a group of survivors is pushing for congressional legislation that would allow survivors to file civil lawsuits against European insurance companies in the U.S. The proposed legislation has about 70 sponsors. On the other hand, the chief objection to this proposed legislation is that it could place a strain on foreign relations.

In the mean time, three places that can help you start a Holocaust-era insurance claim include: Project Heart, Holocaust Claims Processing Office, and Yad Vashem (a database).

See Leslie Scism, Collecting Unpaid Insurance, Wall Street Journal, Mar. 2, 2012.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.)) for bringing this article to my attention.