I
107TH CONGRESS
1ST SESSION
H. R. 2693
To provide for the establishment of the Holocaust Insurance Registry by
the Archivist of the United States and to require certain disclosures
by insurers to the Secretary of Commerce.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
AUGUST 1, 2001
Mr. WAXMAN (for himself, Mr. ENGEL, Ms. SCHAKOWSKY, Mr. HORN, Mr.
FOLEY, Mr. HASTINGS of Florida, and Ms. SLAUGHTER) introduced the
following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Financial Services,
and in addition to the Committee on 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 provide for the establishment of the Holocaust Insurance
Registry by the Archivist of the United States and to
require certain disclosures by insurers to the Secretary
of Commerce.
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 Victims In-
surance Relief Act of 2001’’.
SEC. 2. FINDINGS AND PURPOSE.
(a) FINDINGS.—The Congress finds the following:
(1) The Holocaust, including the murder of
6,000,000 European Jews, the systematic destruc-
tion of families and communities, and the wholesale
theft of their assets, was one of the most tragic
crimes in modern history.
(2) When Holocaust survivors or heirs of Holo-
caust victims presented claims to insurance compa-
nies after World War II, many were rejected because
the claimants did not have death certificates or
physical possession of policy documents that had
been confiscated by the Nazis.
(3) In many instances, insurance company
records are the only proof of the existence of insur-
ance policies belonging to Holocaust victims.
(4) Holocaust survivors and their descendants
have been fighting for decades to persuade insurance
companies to settle unpaid insurance claims.
(5) 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, representatives of inter-
national Jewish organizations, and the State of
Israel, to expeditiously address the issue of unpaid
insurance policies issued to Holocaust victims.
(6) 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 insurance claims that were
not paid or were nationalized during the Nazi era.
(7) The ICHEIC’s deadline for receiving claims
applications is January 31, 2002.
(8) Three years into the process of addressing
the issue of unpaid insurance policies, companies
continue to withhold thousands of names on dor-
mant accounts.
(9) As of June 15, 2001, more than 84 percent
of the 72,675 claims applications filed with the
ICHEIC remained idle because the claimants could
not identify the company holding the policy.
(10) Insurance companies doing business in the
United States have a responsibility to ensure the
disclosure of insurance policies of Holocaust victims
that they or their related companies may have
issued, to facilitate the rapid resolution of questions
concerning these policies, and to eliminate the fur-
ther victimization of policyholders and their families.