Evening star., 1947-10-22
VA Insurance Head
SAYS 95% Get Good
Service on Policies
By GEORGE Beveridqe

! Harold w. Brelnlng, insurance
chief of the Veterans Adminisra-
ton, said today that 95 per cent Of
GI policy holders are getting "gooo
service despite a report by the
House Veterans Affairs Committee
that the program is inefficient ano
inadequate"
/ Meanwhile, the Veterans of For
eign Wars has launched its own in
vestigation into the program as g
result of the committee report, il
was learned.
The report, issued last week end
said the insurance service is begged
down and that veterans are not
getting notices of lapsed policies
premium payments due or those
paid. 1t strongly criticized Mr.
Breining and urged a change OF
| top personnel"
VFW Officials Visit Breining.
FVW officials visited Mr.. Breining
on Monday with a prepared list of
"a questions, attempting to find who
was to blame for numerous veter-
ans complaints about poor service
One of the questions was whether
Mr.. Breining had opposed or in
dersed a move early in 1916 by
Veterans Administrator Bradley
that decentralized the insurance
setup from New York, placing it un-
der direct control of 13 branch
offices of the agency throughout the
country.
Mr.. Breining said he replied that
there was no choice in the move be-
cause the agency could find neither
enough space nor enough personnel
in New York to handle the millions
of accounts that came out of World
War II.
Public Relations Criticized.
~Another question hit at the VA
public relations setup, long a target
of VFW criticism. It said, in part
THE VFW gets tons of canned
releases from the Veterans Admin
lstratlon apparently for the
purpose of telling veterans and the
public what wonderful institution
the Veterans Administration was.
rs it your opinion that instead of
the release of such picayunish and
Irrelevant propaganda such funds
could have been used to better ad-
vantage by making holders of Ma
tional Service Life Insurance con-
sclous of the necessity of prompt
and accurate premium remittances?
Mr.. Breining said he answered
that that was a matter for the pub
lie relations director.
Further Probes Ordered.
VFW~ service officers stationed at
each of the 13 branch offices also
have been instructed to carry on
their own Investigations of opera
tlons there, spokesmen for the or
ganization said.
Mr.. Brelning said in an interview
that branch Offices are giving spe-
clal attention to current policy
holders and that '95 per cent of
them are getting good service as a
result"
He admitted, however, that the
service still faces stable backlogs of
work, and put the principal blame on
inadequate personnel Congress last
year, he said, cut insurance employees
1000 under the number authorized
by the Budget Bureau.
100000 Files Misplaced.
During the decentralization move,
for example, he said, 100000 rec
ords went to the wrong .,laces. About
100000 still have not been located.
Several months ago, he said, the
agency had more than a million in
surance payments from veterans
that could not be identified. About
100000 of them-representing about
So 900, ,000-still are not identified.
Mr.. Breining said many of them
never will be.
The VA headquarters here has
thousands of policy payments sent
in with names, addresses or policy
numbers missing.
Frequently, officials said, parents
will write notes accompanying
checks, asking that the money be
applied to their sons policies. But
they neglect to give names. Hun
dreds of postal notes, with no identi-
flcation of any kind on them, also
pour in the agency Offices.
Gets $4,000 Letters Daily.
Mr.. Breining said the agency gets
$4,000 letters about insurance every
day that have to be answered. This
month, branch Offices reported they
had cut down huge backlog to
2l7,000 unanswered letters.
One of the biggest problems in
keeping correspondence up to date is
that 10 per cent of all policy holders
report changes of address every
month, the director said.
"All but three of the 13 branch
offices have just about whipped the
backlog problems Mr.. Brefning
said. The three, which he said are
located at Chicago, San Francisco
and Philadelphia, "are being held
back because they can't get per-
sonnet" !" he declared