I 
110TH CONGRESS 
1ST SESSION H. R. 1746 
To require disclosure of Holocaust-era policies by insurers and establish 
a federal cause of action for claims arising out of a covered policy. 
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 
MARCH 28, 2007 
Ms. ROS-LEHTINEN (for herself, Mr. WEXLER, Mr. CANTOR, Mr. PENCE, and 
Mr. CHABOT) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
Committee on Financial Services, and in addition to the Committees on 
Foreign Affairs and Oversight and Government Reform, for a period to 
be subsequently determined by the Speaker, in each case for consider-
ation of such provisions as fall within the jurisdiction of the committee 
concerned 
A BILL 
To require disclosure of Holocaust-era policies by insurers 
and establish a federal cause of action for claims arising 
out of a covered policy. 
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Holocaust Insurance 
Accountability Act of 2007’’. 
SEC. 2. FINDINGS. 
Congress finds the following: 
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(1) The Holocaust, an event in which millions 
of people endured enormous suffering through tor-
ture and other violence, including the murder of 
6,000,000 Jews and millions of others, the destruc-
tion of families and communities, and the theft of 
their assets, was one of the most heinous crimes in 
human history. 
(2) Before and during World War II, millions 
of people purchased insurance policies to safeguard 
family assets, plan for retirement, provide for a 
dowry, or save for their children’s education. 
(3) When Holocaust survivors or heirs of Holo-
caust victims presented claims to insurance compa-
nies after World War II, many were rejected because 
they did not have death certificates or physical pos-
session of policy documents that had been con-
fiscated by the Nazis or lost in the devastation of 
the Holocaust. 
(4) In many instances, insurance company 
records and records in government archives are the 
only proof of the existence of insurance policies be-
longing to Holocaust victims. 
(5) Holocaust survivors and heirs have been at-
tempting for decades to persuade insurance compa-
nies to settle unpaid insurance claims. 
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(6) In 1998, the International Commission on 
Holocaust Era Insurance Claims (in this section re-
ferred to as the ‘‘ICHEIC’’) was established by the 
National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 
cooperation with several European insurance compa-
nies, European regulators, the Government of Israel, 
and non-governmental organizations with the prom-
ise that it would expeditiously address the issue of 
unpaid insurance policies issued to Holocaust vic-
tims. 
(7) On July 17, 2000, the United States and 
Germany signed an Executive Agreement in support 
of the German Foundation ‘‘Remembrance, Respon-
sibility, and the Future’’, which designated the 
ICHEIC to resolve all Holocaust-era insurance poli-
cies issued by German companies and their subsidi-
aries. 
(8) On January 17, 2001, the United States 
and Austria signed an Executive Agreement, which 
designated the ICHEIC to resolve all Holocaust-era 
insurance policies issued by Austrian companies and 
their subsidiaries. 
(9) Between 1998 and the closing of the 
ICHEIC claims deadline on December 31, 2003, few 
names of the Jewish policy holders from Eastern 
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Europe were published, though more than two-thirds 
of the Jewish population of the territory occupied by 
the Nazis and their allies were from Eastern Eu-
rope. 
(10) The ICHEIC is scheduled to close in 2007 
without the disclosure of thousands of names of poli-
cies sold to Jewish residents of Europe prior to 
World War II as of February of 2007. 
(11) With the ICHEIC process essentially com-
pleted, companies holding Holocaust-era insurance 
policies continue to withhold names of owners and 
beneficiaries of thousands of insurance policies sold 
to Jewish customers prior to World War II. 
(12) Experts estimate that the value in 2006 of 
unpaid life, annuity, endowment, and dowry insur-
ance theft from European Jewry from the Holocaust 
and its aftermath ranges between $17,000,000,000 
and $200,000,000,000. 
(13) As of the latest report by the ICHEIC on 
February 20, 2007, the value of claims paid in rec-
ognition of victims’ policies was approximately 
$250,000,000 and fewer than 5 percent of the poli-
cies estimated to have been sold to Jews at the be-
ginning of World War II have been paid through 
ICHEIC. 
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(14) As of 2006, ICHEIC has not provided the 
State Department with the information required by 
paragraphs (3) through (7) of section 704(a) of the 
Foreign Relations Authorization Act, Fiscal Year 
2003 (Public Law 107–228), which requires the Sec-
retary of State to report to the appropriate congres-
sional committees on the status of the implementa-
tion of the Executive Agreement between Germany 
and the United States. 
(15) In American Insurance Association, Inc., 
v. Garamendi, the United States Supreme Court 
held that under the supremacy clause of the Con-
stitution of the United States, executive agreements 
and Federal Government policy calling for insurance 
claims against German and Austrian companies to 
be handled within ICHEIC preempted State laws 
authorizing State insurance commissioners to sub-
poena company records and require publication of 
the names of Holocaust era policy holders. 
(16) In the Garamendi case, the Supreme 
Court stated that Congress, which has the power to 
regulate international commerce, and prescribe Fed-
eral Court jurisdiction, had not addressed disclosure 
and restitution of Holocaust victims’ insurance poli-
cies. 
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(17) Subsequent court decisions have dismissed 
survivors’ suits against Assicurazioni Generali, 
S.p.A., even though there is no executive agreement 
between the United States and Italy. 
(18) Congress believes that United States 
courts do currently have jurisdiction to entertain ac-
tions by Holocaust victims and heirs of Holocaust 
victims to recover insurance proceeds sold to their 
families before the Holocaust. 
(19) Due to lower court interpretations of the 
Garamendi case, this Act expresses the intent of 
Congress to legislate to the maximum extent allowed 
by the Constitution regarding the rights of Holo-
caust survivors and the heirs and beneficiaries of 
Holocaust victims to obtain information from insur-
ers and to bring actions in United States courts to 
recover unpaid funds from entities that participated 
in the theft of family insurance assets or the affili-
ates of such entities. 
(20) The ICHEIC either chose not to pursue or 
did not put forth sufficient effort to investigate or 
obtain restitution for forms of insurance other than 
life, annuity, endowment, or dowry insurance sold to 
Holocaust victims, despite documentation that other 
forms of insurance benefits such as property and 
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casualty insurance, disability insurance, health in-
surance, transport insurance, and marine insurance 
were also improperly withheld from Jews, nor did 
the ICHEIC make sufficient effort to investigate the 
records of reinsurers who provided coverage for 
Jews’ policies prior to World War II, despite evi-
dence that reinsurers and reinsurance played a sig-
nificant role in the theft of the family assets of Hol-
ocaust victims. 
(21) Disclosures in 2006 concerning the vast 
Nazi archives at Bad Arolsen Germany, which have 
been closed to direct access by Holocaust survivors, 
families of Holocaust victims, and researchers since 
1955, underscores the necessity a comprehensive 
opening of all archival sources of information for 
Holocaust victims and their families. 
(22) Insurance payments should be expedited to 
the victims of the most heinous crime of the 20th 
Century to ensure that justice is served. 
(23) States should be allowed to collect Holo-
caust-era insurance information from any insurance 
companies that want to do business in such States. 
(24) Tens of thousands of Holocaust survivors 
around the world, including in the United States, 
live below or near the poverty level, and cannot meet 
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their basic day-to-day needs for food, medicine, shel-
ter, and other necessities. 
(25) This Act will enable survivors, heirs, and 
beneficiaries to obtain compensation commensurate 
with the real monetary value of their losses, and to 
penalize unjustly enriched insurers for their fraudu-
lent, deceptive, and unfair practices, which continue 
to the present day, and to deter such conduct in the 
future. 
(26) Holocaust victims and their families should 
be able to recover claims arising from Holocaust era 
insurance policies and the Federal Government 
should be able to recover for the unjust enrichment 
of insurers in Federal court when they consider it 
necessary to seek redress through the judicial sys-
tem. 
(27) Under the circumstances faced by Holo-
caust victims and their families, the courts of the 
United States should be open to Holocaust victims 
and their families for a reasonable number of years 
after enactment of this Act, without regard to any 
other statutes of limitation. 
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SEC. 3. HOLOCAUST INSURANCE REGISTRY. 
(a) ESTABLISHMENT AND MAINTENANCE.—Chapter 
21 of title 44, United States Code, is amended by adding 
at the end the following: 
‘‘§ 2119. Holocaust Insurance Registry 
‘‘(a) ESTABLISHMENT.—The Archivist shall establish 
and maintain a collection of records that shall— 
‘‘(1) consist of the information provided to the 
Archivist under section 5 of the Holocaust Victims 
Insurance Relief Act of 2007; 
‘‘(2) be known as the Holocaust Insurance Reg-
istry. 
‘‘(b) PUBLIC ACCESS TO THE RECORDS.—The Archi-
vist shall make all the aforementioned records accessible 
to the public and searchable by means of the Internet and 
by any other means the Archivist deems appropriate.’’. 
(b) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of sections 
at the beginning of chapter 21 of title 44, United States 
Code, is amended by adding at the end the following: 
‘‘2119. Holocaust Insurance Registry.’’. 
(c) AGREEMENTS WITH EUROPEAN COUNTRIES.— 
(1) AGREEMENTS.—The Secretary of State 
shall seek to enter into agreements with European 
countries to make available to the Holocaust Insur-
ance Registry information on covered policies that is 
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stored in the archives or other government reposi-
tories of such countries. 
(2) REPORT.—Not later than 6 months after 
the date of the enactment of this Act, and every 6 
months thereafter, the Secretary of State shall sub-
mit to Congress a report on efforts to carry out this 
subsection. 
SEC. 4. DISCLOSURE OF HOLOCAUST-ERA POLICIES BY IN-
SURERS. 
(a) REQUIREMENT.—An insurer shall file, in an elec-
tronic format, with the Secretary of Commerce the fol-
lowing information: 
(1) The first name, last name, date of birth, 
and domicile of the policyholder of each covered pol-
icy issued or reinsured by the insurer or a related 
company of the insurer. 
(2) The name of the entity that issued the cov-
ered policy. 
(3) The name of the entity that is responsible 
for the liabilities of the entity that issued the cov-
ered policy. 
(b) FILING.—Information under subsection (a) shall 
be filed not later than 90 days after the date of the enact-
ment of this Act. 
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SEC. 5. PROVISION OF INFORMATION TO ARCHIVIST. 
The Secretary of Commerce shall provide to the Ar-
chivist of the United States any information filed with the 
Secretary under section 4(a) promptly after the filing of 
such information. 
SEC. 6. PENALTY. 
The Secretary of Commerce shall assess a civil pen-
alty of not less than $5,000 for each day that an insurer 
fails to comply with the requirements of section 4, as de-
termined by the Secretary. 
SEC. 7. USE OF AMOUNTS RECEIVED AS CIVIL PENALTIES. 
To the extent or in the amounts provided in advance 
in appropriation Acts, the Archivist of the United States 
may use amounts received by the Government as civil pen-
alties under section 6 to maintain the Holocaust Insurance 
Registry. 
SEC. 8. NOTIFICATION. 
(a) INITIAL NOTIFICATION.—Not later than 180 days 
after the date of the enactment of this Act, and periodi-
cally thereafter, the Secretary of Commerce shall notify 
each State’s commissioner of insurance of the identity of 
each insurer that has failed to comply with the require-
ments of section 4 or has not satisfied any civil penalty 
for which the insurer is liable under section 6. 
(b) REQUESTS BY STATES.—On request by the com-
missioner of insurance of a State concerning an insurer 
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