Transcripts For CSPAN3 Hearing On Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims 20240714

Up next a hearing on holocaust era on insurance claims. Why the regist the Senate Judiciary committee, this is about an hour and 15 minutes. Todays hearing is holocaustera insurance claim. I wont have an opening statement. All right, let me get settled in here. First of all, thank you mr. Chairman for holding this hearing and today we are discussing holocaustera insurance claims. It is interesting before and during the second world war, many europeans dpurchased their insurance policies to protect their loved ones. Those who survived and the heirs of those who did not have since attempted to collect the proceeds from those policies. However, bieneficiaries have found it difficult to collect these policies because paper work were left behind or destroyed during the genocide. To remedy this injustice, american insurance regulators, the state of israel and jewish and survival organizations and 1998 established acheck. The International Commission on holocaust era insurance claims. The mandate is very interesting was twofold. First, i check when identified Holocaust Victims who purchased insurance policies. I checked with administer of the repayment of those policies using standard of proof. If clients lack documentation or face other barriers to repayment could receive some measures of justice. I check actually facilitated the payment over 300 million to almost 48,000 Holocaust Survivors. Their heirs and families of Holocaust Victims. All of this was known no cost to the claims to maximize the amount of compensation that went to survivors and heirs of the victims. It ended in 2007. Since then some european insurers have continues to pay claims voluntarily. The new york and state Insurance Department have helped process the claims of individuals who missed i check deadline. The state department under clinton and mr. Bush and obama ordered in court that i check was the exclusive process for resolving holocaustera insurance claims. Several groups and survivalor groups including the american gathering of you issue survivors and international also supported i check. The ongoing new york state process as the best way to resolve those claims. The question before us today is whether the i check process and the ability to submit newly discovered claims to the new York State Department of Financial Services works. Some of the witnesses on our panel argues new legislation is necessary. I very much thank you for calling this hearing. It is an interesting issue and would be interesting to see what happens so thank you. I am glad i deferred to you. That makes perfect sense. Thank you very much. Senator scott. Welcome to the committee and look forward to hearing from you. Good morning chairman graham and chairwoman feinstein, thank you for holding this today. Dave was born in 1928. Dave is grateful to join us today. We can make sure holocaust survivor like yourself received the help you need and absolutely deserved. Thank you for the entire panelists who appeared today, we do everything in our power to support the survivors and the families. The holocaust is more than a history lesson. It is a dark reminder that evil and hate exists in this world. Because supporting israel should never be a partisan issue. I will continue to support israel and take action on those who wish to do them harm. Our memories who suffer have never weaken. This is a holocaust lesson of mankind. Thank you for the opportunity to speak. Thank you very much senator scott. You have come to me Severe Weather times about the importance of the hearing, i am glad we are able to get this scheduled. Panelists, please come forward, please. So thank you all for coming. We have on hour panel today mr. Webel. Congressional research service. How do you say your last name, sir . Memestain. Well start with mr. Webel. Yes, mr. Chairman. Ranking members of the committee, thank you for having me here today to testify before the committee. My name is barry webel, i am at the congressional service. For members of the audience whos not familiar with crs. We are education of the library congress. Our role is to provide objective, non partisan and research and analysis to congress and ci take notes and advocate for policy outcome. I provided to the testimony including details of the issues that we are talking about today and i like to recognize my coauthor who contributed greatly to that testimony. My specialty at crx is insurance. I want to start off talking about the Insurance Market and getting into efforts of providing compensations after the fact and finish talking about the policy valuations that are significant issue today. So preworld war ii in Central Europe, insurance at that time was not only designed to compensate in the event of a death of a loved one but has specific asset allocations. Policies ran for 20 years. At the end of the policy, if the person is still alive, they would receive the value at that time, they could have surrender value at hands. These are significance assets. There are specific policy booy e nazi government. Post world war ii. There are efforts particularly in west germany at the time to provide compensation and res restoration for people who suffered. These efforts for many people felt short or what was expected. This was the case in the eastern part of europe. Companies took a nationalized and some cases private insurance and most cases did not exist following the stake over. It is generally recognized for that part, there was little to no compensation. In the 1990s, issues came before again. Both insurance and in areas like slave labor or switch Bank Accounts. There are a variety of International Efforts to address this with i check being the mode that was chosen in the insurance route. Now i check was very much an individualized claim driven process. They attempted to identify potential claimants to seek out claims to adjudicate the claim with the reduced standard and to get resources to pay off those claims or provide it primarily with various european or Insurance Companies. An approach which has been significant source of criticism has become source of i check could be seen as a macro type approa approach. To consider how much insurance or insurance asset may have been outstanding in Central Eastern europe at the time and to judge whether or not the i check process has been doing a good job in writing or paying off some the values. Senator feinstein mentions about 300 million is paid in claims for i check and another 69 million in other compensations. These are support of the early part of the 2000s which you adjust that to the present day, you get it a little higher. Estimates for the present value of unpaid holocaust era insurance claims in Central Europe ranged from 2 billion to 25 billion in current day values. As an economist, i would say there are a variety of economic tools that you can use but significantly as you drill down to how the numbers are developed, you very quickly come to normative judgment of what the proper indices to use and what countdowns of pas of paid claims if you would like. I can go in greater details if members of the committee are interested. I think what i would probably leave on is simply that. There are significant judgment and normative judgment in how you do this. The economic tools really only get you so far in determining what the right is. With that, i will finish my testimony and i look forward to any questions that you may have. My name is david memerlstein. In 1944, people were all deported to the side and to auswhitz. They put in two buckets. My grandfather were all murdered. I am the only member in my family to survive. My time is limited here i give you my deposition. The case to tell you how i survivor. Believe me, i was lucky. Now, lets talk about insurance. I remember that it was insurance by generally. Of course, we had no documents for obvious reasons. When we came home, there was nothing left in the house. They would not settle. Thats been the companys escape map of the idea of eye check because treasure of the states. Everyone told us i check was not binding unless you agreed to a settlement. With all those promises, i applied. They say they could not find my fathers name. They sent me a check for a thousand dollars as payment. So i resented the idea of humanitarian so i was in shocked that the u. S. Government took away our rights to go on american course. How will the Justice Department people and those judges feel if they lose everything and then their own government said they could not go to an american court. Their government said they could not go to court. Like every other american citizens, they would not stand for it and i am here to ask you to change that, sadly you may hear from some jewish group that against Congress Passing the law. They are not, i repeat, they are not holocaust survivor groups and do not represent survivors in any way. I have more bad news. Half of the survivors live in poverty could not afford basic necessities of life even though germany gets more money every year, it is not nearly enough. It does not matter that our insurance tried to be taken away. Most survivors are offering. Aside from what we have in writing from the german ambassador that they would never threaten for survivors. But thousands of survivors died in miseries over these past 50 years and that was so unnecessary. 25 billion is what the company o owed. We believe it should be honored and the rest should be used to help survivors in need. Without action by congress, the Insurance Companies will be ahead of the victims of the holocaust. This is unacceptable. I am 90 years old. I am about to turn 91. For the past 30 years, i have visited classrooms and spoken to students and those of my experien experience, i do this not because i am telling the story of us. They are mostly very sad. I do this because i believe that old people have an obligation to become educated about the holocaust to remind people and make a personal commitment they will do everything they can to never let such atrocity happen again. Not to the jewish people and not to anyone else. And now i will be more than willing to stay after this hearing and talk to anybody that would like to ask or talk about all these stories that i told you. Thank you very much thank you sir, thank you very, very much. My name is sam dubbin. On behalf of our panelist, i am honored for you to hold this will meeting today. In his retirement he spent count less hours educating School Children and advocating for Holocaust Survivors. Legislation is necessary to restore survivors rights against Global Insurance who failed. Survivors rights were preemptive and along of all americans should be limited in their ability to recover unpaid insurance policies. Limited to the i check commission. No treaty and no act of congress and no pretestimoemptive tomorr. Only congress is excluded from all of this, correct major historic injustice. First legal piece. They say the insurers will promise legal piece if they participated in i check. This is not true. Eye check itself is always understood to be voluntary unless a claim is accepted or offered a payment. The u. S. Government never promised Insurance Companies, the executive agreement and germany negates that argument, it states the United States does not suggests that policy interest concerning the foundation in itself providing an independent bases for dismissal of claims. The Clinton Administration of senator feinstein, i would like to make sure you hear what i am going to say because the Clinton Administration negotiated that when they went to court, the agreement does not include vajs for filing their insurance or does not mandate individual policyholders or beneficiary holders bringing their claims to eye check. The United States has not under taken the duty to achieve legal peace for german Insurance Companies again state litigation and regulation. The second major argument the opponent makes is that a legislation would undermine negotiations with germany and others to survivors. No one ever explained specifically why others should be able to retain billions of dollars they owe to jewish customers from contrast to induce germany of all country to provide assistance. The logic there and the morality is completely averting. Germany ambassador reject such linkage and a letter he sent to the leadership in 2008. While we continue to oppose 1 1746, germany has never threaten to cut benefits for survivors and we had no intention to do so. The big picture is awful. It is not disputed. All Holocaust Survivors lived in poverty and never received of the care they need. After a decade of incremental home care increases, members of the Senate Select committee on aging made the statement evidence before them proved lef levels of care would meet only 25 . That was in 2014 after the decade of dublin. Emergency Share Services does fund. One of the exhibits i gave you is a chart that measures what would be the need for an average survivor of 15 hours, 20 hours a week of 15. What germany provided through the plaintiffs. The red represents the amount of unprof unprovided care. It is in the billions every year for the past 15 years. The regime of giving these insurance immunity resulted in tens of thousands of survivors suffering and dying without the care they need. Finally let me just say that part of the new york claims Processing Offices concern, this was the act argument that was made in 2008. In the four years after that, the new york claim, settles six claims for 70,000. They never published any information. I check itself was not an appropriate mechanism because it was flawed in many, many ways. I hope you ask questions about that because i see my time is running out. There are a lot of specifics that you need to understand. In addition, i would submit that we provided a letter from harry rose, the child to german survivors who found the name on eye checklist of German Company went to new york, the results are something that you need to see. The bottom line is Holocaust Survivors should not be second class citizens under u. S. Laws. The company should not be immune from having to pay the money they owed. Whether it is 2 billion 25 billion, that money belong to the victims and the rest goes to survivors in need. That would be a great thing. I am sorry, can i add one thing . There are some yjewis jewish gr that oppose legislation. The Jewish Federation of america says they are no longer opposing this legislation. The zion organization of america and chairman of the usc foundation submitted letters. They maintain and support for what the survivors trying to achieve. Good morning chairman graham, Ranking Member feinstein and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today. Is that better . Thank you for the opportunity to appear before you today and share my knowledge on the important issues of holocaust era insurance claims. As director of the holocaust claims, a unit of the Department State Department Financial services, i am pleased to be able to provide some measures of justice to the victims in our world history. The state of new york adjusting unresolved claims. In june of 1997 established the cpo. Claimants paid no fee for the services nor the office takes a percentage o f the value of the assets recovered. Our goal is to alleviate any cost they may encounter and trying to pursuit claims on their own. The office assisted over 2400 individuals. Today the combined total offered announced to more than 178 million, 34 million which compensation for insurance polici policies. In response to the complex nature, the hcpo employed a fourstep message to handle cases. It takes Historic Research to corroborate and textualize information. The result of which have shown that germany with the largest mark and Continental Europe has the most compensation program. In contrast, the country with the largest number of the victims played a relatively minor role. Specific information can be found and both archived in Company Records must take this back into account. Since 1998, hundreds of policyholder names from both archives have been published online. The office used the information and International Public and private archives to obtain documents. Second, the hcpo determines where to file the claim. What present day company or process is responsible for the policy in question. For claims policy issued by Companies Still in assistance. For others determining the successor is more complex. Indeed, many cases there is no present say successor. Claims are submitted to all available yvenues. Under these standards which are not a claim cant be rejected on the ground. With the implementation of international agreement, the hcpo transferred thousands of claims to a variety. They reiterated their commitment to review and process claims under i check standards of proof. Althou although they are no longer obligated to do so since the closing of i check. They continue to deal with the Insurance Company to result outstanding claims. The fourth and final step of the process involves evaluating decisions to ensure they agree on processing guidelines. Like the missing property researched for, no two claims are alike. Each require individual tensions. A task greatly help by increasing archival and library cooperations and the Company Continues to review claims. The process of restitutijereresd be stressful. Hcpo shows that it is possible to obtain compensation for assets lost during the holocaustera. In closing or to suggest as we strive to achieve our common goals to settle claims, as se e sensitively and it behooves us all. Thank you again for the opportunity to discuss the hcpo. I would be happy to address any questions you may have. Chairman graham and Ranking Member feinstein and members of the committee, thank you for holding the hearing and continued interests of the welfare of survivorsurvivors. I would ask my full statement to be made apart of the record. Providing justice for Holocaust Survivors and families of victims and preserving the memories and lessons of the holocaust have been a central part of my life through four u. S. Administrations and beyond and my voluntary negotiations of the jewish claim conference. I play a central role in the creation of the u. S. Holocaust Memorial Museum during the Carter Administration and the Clinton Administration and negotiated 8 billion of recovers for swiss and french Bank Accounts and slave enforced sleepers by german and austrian companies, restitution oflooted art , i negotiated with over 40 countries the return of communal and Real Property the payment of insurance policies and most recently the deportation of on the french real rate. In my work since with the claims conference, we have increased monthly pensions, worldwide when i started in 2009 there were ,34 million. This coming year 500 million. We have now provided 24 seven homecare coverage which didnt exist before. We have covered any program for child survivors. We dramatically increase pensions. None of this is enough, but it is dramatic. My passion for holocaust justice and memory and my experience in designating International Agreements leads me to say to you respectfully that any legislation similar to what was considered last year which would provide a cause of action against european Insurance Companies and human trafficing course policies what have potentially catastrophic negative effects. First, in unprecedented ways it would undermine legally Binding International executive agreements going back almost 20 years with german and austrian governments and with their private companies. India with the German Companies there were thousand German Companies who participated in the payment of ,10 billion, 5 billion. These have been in place for almost 20 years. In return for these large payments for germany and some 800 million from austria, the companies were given what we called legal fees. These agreements were reached with some of the toughest most renowned classaction lawyers all over the country who agreed to dismiss their suits in return for the payment of 10 billion deutschmarks 5 billion in settlements and with holocaust survivor groups as well. We did not remove the right to sue, we could not. What we did say and what we have done is that if suits are brought contrary to these agreements the u. S. Government would initiate a statement of interest saying it has been and was and is in the National Security interests of the United States to resolve claims in a nonlitigation context. The u. S. Supreme court in that case and the judge later attorney general under president bush both indicated that these were appropriate uses of president ial authority and indeed the generally case dealt precisely with the insurance issue. Imagine the chaos of allowing loose suits under the circumstances. Second it would complicate future holocaust negotiation since the word of the u. S. Government could not be trusted and believe me there are still many things that need to be done. Many art and property issues. Imagine how the credibility of the United States would be affected when the fact that you properly pass which requires the state department in november to give a report card on how all the countries of the declaration proceeded with 46 countries and we are judging them on whether they have met their obligation and here we would be withdrawing from International Obligations that we reached. Third, any legislation would be contrary to longstanding bipartisan policy to resolve holocaust related claims by nonlitigation, negotiated claims process without the cost of course the lawyers and with dramatically lower burdens of proof than any federal court would require. It would leave beneficiaries of insurance policies to a cruel fate of pursuing lengthy costly almost certainly fruitless investigation with claimants facing high standards of proof in federal court and other legal defenses instead of using the low levels of proof under the icheck process. In 1998 they voluntarily put the lead in creating icheck all of whom were the leadership of it that many of you know im sure, senator graham you must worked with larry. Tirelessly worked as head of for 10 years. It was strongly supported by Madeleine Albright and colin powell thereafter. I can assure you larry is as tough as anyone. He would not have ever permitted european insurers to pull the wool over his eyes. By the time they closed their doors in code 2007 the Insurance Company had paid 306 million to 48,000 victims using relaxed standards of proof lower than any court would demand. Please understand, half of the claims did not have the name of the Insurance Company because the documents didnt exist. They were able to match over 16,000 claims that had no names of Insurance Company to a very tedious process and when they couldnt find any evidence they ended up making humanitarian payments as well. Their work was overseen not just by larry, but by all the member organizations of icheck including the esteemed specifically involved himself in the evaluation of insurance policies. All of these survivor groups, the american Insurance Commissioners closely reviewed the europeanand authored their own report on evaluation. Mr. Ambassador, you need to wrap up. The claims deadline was extended six times. Congress helps held hearings. At each time it is decided not to go forward with legislation and the legislation would also fly in the face of opposition for every Jewish Organization and for major holocaust survivor organizations. I have suggestions of what this committee could do constructively required european insurers doing business here to submit periodic report on their claims processing to make sure they are abiding by their promise to commission with these low standards of assurance. In addition, they could look at why if any claims are resolved or were denied those were done and they could memorialize 519,000 names of potential Holocaust Survivors so that if any future names can be brought it can be brought under these lower standards and they can use and his group and they can recover under procedures that no court would ever allow to be done. Thank you very much. Thank you. If you look at the number, the pot of money for lack of a better way of saying it. All the people that paid into the insurance system before the destroyed the system is somewhere between 2,000,000,020 5 billion . For one thing a lot of this money was from a company paid out before the war because part of the how much . You have estimates of the unpaid value of the assets somewhere between i think you can legitimately say between two and 25 billion. Can you say that the claims process when you combine new york and this International System has recovered less than 500 million . I would boost that because 2 billion is probably a present day number and that is from 10 years ago. You probably get to seven or 800 million. Taking the most generous number 2 billion and bringing that to present value, the Current System is basically recaptured less than half. Is that correct that is the most generous interpretation. Is not working for my pointed view. If you believe there is 25 billion of uncompensated claims owed and the Current System has generated 700 million then somebody needs to look at something else. I would add that when they talk about making a paternalistic argument that they dont want to disappoint survivors, we respectfully disagree. Those who survived they should not be treated like children and they shouldnt be lectured to about this appointment. How do you respond to my observation that whatever process we have that the money recovered is woefully inadequate given the pot of money available. I disagree. What is the number . No one knows precisely. Wait a minute. You disagree with what he said to 25 . That is the total. We dont know the number of jewish people who had insurance. No one knows. We know the total Insurance Market germany had the largest percentage of insured people 52 of the european market. Cues were less than half of 1 . had three and half million and almost no insurance. Germany has paid on its own 80 billion since the end of the war. A significant part of that place for insurance policies not counted in these, bank assets and the life in the 50s and 60s the dutch, french and the germans had their own insurance payments so when you accumulate all of those plus the icheck process you get a very substantial number. The fact is no one can give you an accurate figure of what number of victims had insurance, how large those policies were. If we subject those claimants to a Court Procedure and vitiate 20 years there is a disconnect between the numbers he is giving me and i dont know what person germany was jewish that paid into an insurance system. I dont know if there is no insurance in poland and go through every other nation that did not see occupation and people were denied not only Everything Else now we are talking about insurance and i find it hard to believe it is 700 million. The 25 million estimate is jewish policies. He worked for them. He was the economist that went into the records. How did you arrive at that number . The Jewish Population was known and based on data that they have a propensity of jewish people to purchase insurance. That was unanimously accepted by the members of the icheck all the people he said i dont mean to go over, the icheck group evaluated the pot of money to be 25 billion. Based on 800,000 policies was 6 million at the end of the war and a. They never actually put a value on that. What he did was say lets use a 30 year u. S. Bond very conservative and not something any Insurance Company would accept. Based on that when icheck finished 600 million in 19 sick today that is 25 billion. I just have to say we shouldnt be loose with the facts. Icheck never accepted a 25 evaluation. They did their own report and commissioned their own report by a north dakota commissioner and they got nowhere near that figure. It is my understanding that even though icheck process is closed and fisheries canceled pursue claims to the new York State Department of Financial Services. Do you know of those that have done this . I do, harry rose from miami. He is a child of two sherman survivors. He went on to the website in 2011 and saw the name of his mother and grandparents having german policies. He went to the Processing Office and the way those names appeared on the website from germany was that the German Insurance Association. Germany got special permission to do their own thing and instead of having the public they allow the association to filter them and publish them on the website so the association is the one who knows how those names, website so when he applied the first thing they did was commissioned research into his familys well and they went to the German Insurance Association who claims they had no idea where the names came from. They are the ones that put the names they are. It is the same problem. There is no compulsion. The companies can do what they want and mr. Pros whose parents, his mother confirmed while they were alive had insurance, there is no way to force them over and we. The remedy is what . Legislation validating the laws requiring the companies to publish the names which the case there is no requirement that names have to be published. It is all voluntary and the names published, 25 of german names and he testified to that and he is the guy that did the research into the industry so even though there were names that were published in people who found their families names on that list were denied claims and i have a long list of cases that i can show you including one of your constituents. His greatgrandparents were from italy. They had a policy and many escaped the greatgrandparents owned the business and they stayed. They were hidden and they were behaved betrayed. She had a policy that was enforced and that policy never appeared on the website. They had a researcher in the family dug it out and demanded they produce information and finally they admitted there is a policy. That wasnt even published. Even though these wonderful elements that only resulted in the payment of 3 of the money because it was conceptually suited. What are you suggesting . Legislation that would validate publication of names and a cause of action that would allow them to bring new federal cases to court modeled on the iranian terrorism model where when the courts get wrong congress can come in and fix it and a tenyear period of time in order for the victims getting access to the information to bring those claims and if we talk about long periods of time, when this bill passes and the Companies Know they will have to pay the damages and interest they will cooperate and they will settle and it will be a completely different world. The immunity is something where survivors keep getting pushed around and disrespected. I want you to put the request specifically in writing and send it to this committee so that we might look at it. It is the bill you cosponsored in 2011 with a couple of minor changes. Me i respond . Since the conclusion of icheck the German Companies have a 130 claims. They have paid almost 500 worth 12 million. If the committee wishes it certainly can require the publication of all the lists, it can have hearings about why individual cases were not resolved under the relaxed standards and dont rip up and international, two International Agreements. The Supreme Court has resulted. I am very familiar with the facts. What steps were taken to ensure the icheck decisions were fair and unbiased . Can you talk about that process and how they arrived . I can talk about the evaluation process and the steps that went into the specifics of the economic numbers. In terms of actual claims processing i would have to defer to other members. Basically and in terms of the overall economics they commissioned a specific report led by insurance commissioner from north dakota and a french insurance executive that they walked through and made estimates for all you would need to do to estimate how much of the asset value might be outstanding and that includes the percentage of the Jewish Population and the amount of the insurance outstanding and the amount of the Jewish Population purchase and current values and they did not publish an official icheck number. When you talk about this range. The numbers in the range that they put out current day number was somewhere between 1. 5 to two verses four to 4. 5. In order to get to 25 what you are significantly doing is to some degree readjudicating so you are revaluing policy that was compensated postwar and saying those policies were not enough. We have the north dakota insurance commissioner pomeroy and the french that were involved in this process. What other stakeholders were involved . This was a report that was done by the icheck commission. Do you believe that the icheck paid a fair amount to survivors and their policyholders . I dont haveto make that judgment. What improvements can be made to the new new york process . I am not familiar enough. Thoughts again going back to what youre recommending to congress. My recommendation is that the company should come clean and it should be a compulsory process because the voluntary process of icheck was a disaster. I can give you a lot of other examples. They claimed they had audits, all of the audit did was determine whether or not the companies did what they said they were going to do and everyone was qualified with the following statement, our opinion is not in any way guarantee the conduct inor claim thereon at any time at any particular circumstance. He talked about relaxed standards. That did not occur and icheck impose greater burdens on survivors and the court was. They were allowed to deny claims they said they mechanize their system. And the state of florida where there is a policy established to prove what happened to it. I put that burden and put the burden on the survivors to disprove an argument that the Insurance Companies were making that icheck allowed them to make and mr. Lewis a former superintendent was one of the arbitrators and he resigned because he was told to deny claims when people could not produce documentation and that is the antithesis of liberal standards of proof if the recommendation is a law that forces companies to produce and forces them to be accountable and as i quoted before it is not violating any agreement it is giving them the rights they shouldve had all along. I understand they will go through this new york process with the state of new york and would it be reasonable then for other states to also go through other states . Not at all. Respectfully what they did in new york is ineffective because they dont have any compulsion ability. They simply have to accept whatever the company says and that is what happened with mr. Rose. I was fascinated to see what would happen and you have the documents in these books. It was delays and excuses and at the end those who put the name on the list and we dont know where the names came from so eight months later his mom was alive at the time was unable to validate that they were going to get compensated for that. There were policies with his mothers and grandparents names and if the law passed the company should have to publish that information and we could get to the bottom of it. Emphasis on whois processing and more emphasis on changing the process. Establishing accountability that the actual accountability and with all the things she does know one is supervising her. Therethe fact that there was a statement by the insurance commissioner that this process is waiting and asking for them to be paid wasnt working. The Supreme Court in 2003 ruling that the Clinton Administration support for the commission preempting california effort to improve claims transparency and emphasize no clear declaration of preexemption existed. Some argue that congress should be concerned about the Supreme Court interpretation of preemption. Do you agree . I agree. The preemption decision was unprecedented. Anyone else on the panel but not necessarily all of you unless you want to add to it, does anyone else have something to add to the issue and whether the Supreme Court got it right or wrong . We obtain, he made a request to the Justice Department for documents relating to the insurance issue and they provided documents and some of them were memoranda which were included in this packet about how they should respond in response to the generali case. These are very intelligent and also very dry and what he observed was even in cases in the United States there is considerable tension between the position that Foreign Policy were wires dismissal of an action in the express recognition that the agreement does not provide an independent basis for dismissal and yet they supported generali anyway. It was not only the Supreme Court that said this was a proper use of executive authority it was a separate case by the judge later attorney general under president bush and the case that said the same thing. Going back to 1799 United States has always had agreements to resolve claims and these have been upheld as an appropriate use of is a full authority. I testified many times before congress, 12 times on these agreements. They were supported by large majorities on both sides of the aisle in the house and the senate. We were applauded for negotiating these agreements when going to court would have been so and defensively difficult. And going back to the beginning president had the authority to negotiate these kinds of agreements. Is not really true. In those days there was sovereign immunity and people couldnt see those foreign governments so the government basically collected those claims and made an agreement so people can get compensation and the case with the hostage situation they said there was some Congressional Authority and only emergency was getting them out really justified assignment of claims by the government. The court said what is missing is congress and congress has every right to come in and change that. Anyone who wants to comment on this data from the commission indicates a total distribution of 300 million 31,000 claimants will receive payments were offered a one time humanitarian payment of 1000. Should congress be satisfied or concerned and why . I can tell you from this and my experience was survivors the receipt of a 1000 check that said that this is a humanitarian payment because we think you have some kind of a story, that was an insult basically it was like calling them liars and for the defenders to now include those 34,000 1000 checks in the gross amount of compensation that they provided is a misdirection. It is a ruse because they paid 14,000 claims and paid 34,000 1000 humanitarian payments. Those were not settlements on insurance policies. The claimants who receive these payments did not complain. There has not been any mass complaint that they were underpaid. They were pleased and more than half the cases they didnt even know the names of the Insurance Companies and icheck through Exhaustive Research was able to match up over 16,000 names. Is only the thousand dollar payments came when there was no ability when there is no documentation. Is that correct that any Defamation League has a strong it objection to this . Joe greenberg is here and hes been in contact with the president and he authorized me to say yes they are not objecting to the legislation. That is news to us because they have signed onto a letter last year. Can you walk me through what are the standards of proof they generally require in order to approve a claim and what you think about the appropriateness . According to the little bit of data that exists and mostly what we have is people who were denied we have lots of people his father told him before he died that he had insurance and he asked for that policy after the war and told it had already been paid out. He applied to icheck his dads names and 10 of his aunts and uncles. Icheck told him theyd already paid his father the policy and could not give information about aunts and uncles unless he could give them the names and birth dates of them. He was 12 years old. That is what they demanded. They didnt send him any documents. After they closed the German Embassy provided him with some information including the so called repayment repurchase document dated november 9, 1938. That was the date his father was taken tothat is the kind of treatment survivors got on icheck. I just wanted to make a clarification. While the name of my office has processed and it we do not adjudicate claims. When we say process act as a facilitator and advocate for payments. We dont settle the claim ourselves or make decisions on any particular case. We act as a voice. We do research for them and try to obtain as much documentation as we can for substantiating and we help them with genealogy to help them explain their Family Connection to an insured and i just wanted to clarify that aspect of our office. If i may interject something about the relaxed standards of proof, companies dont require that you provide policy information. Able take a letter from 1934 that says i remember when you bought this policy and they will investigate within their own records for any evidence and they will make payments on policies when they dont have specific details of the policy, just say a record that a policy was purchased even when they dont have the date of purchase or the value of the policy they can still make a claim. I would be happy to submit Additional Information about relaxed standards in tales. I want to ask you about private right of action. If it were to be created would it be better to leave this to state law to determine or should there be a Single National standard . There should be a single right of access and the legislation would provide that the rule of decision would be the state law, forum or a general federal common law which is like what they are using iranian terror litigation at the option of the plaintiff. And these will vary by form and you are okay with that . The plaintiff would have the option. They would have the right to use that. Because of the case there has to be a federal statute to reopen the right of access. Finally, let me ask you, thank you for appearing here today and im wondering if there is anything else that you feel that congress and this committee need to understand about the challenges that Holocaust Survivors and their descendents face in vindicating their insurance claims . How i feel about state taking away the rights . Not only me, all the people that i dealt with and they have the idea with most of them. It still hurts them and it still hurts today that my friend was a soldier in korea. He came home and he couldnt go to an american court. Bypass the thing but they didnt take me because i became a father. Took away our right to go to an american court. And the gentleman mentioned that germany gave a big increase so i want to tell the senate that had something to do with that because i came and she worked with me since she went to the state and told her she has to do one more thing, pass a resolution in congress that germany is not doing what they promised that they would do. And she said how about these senators are going to talk to them senator nelson and senator rubio also i talked to them and it was passed unanimously in both houses and we got the biggest increase from germany and then we got in all these years. Thank you, weve been informed the antiDefamation League still opposes the legislations of the information provided is not correct. We will follow up on the email. That is different than what the president told mr. Greenberg. We will find out about that. Tell me about the process of where the companies are not required to disclose. What is your biggest problem they are . They only published the names they wanted to so as a result it was a voluntary here are the names what would you suggest we do to change that . Validate the laws. Reverse the decision. The burden has been shifted and the claims process. Explain that to me again. For example with generali claims, generali argued that the database in 1936 was complete and that any claims or policy wasnt on that database had been paid or lapsed and icheck accepted that as a basis for family claims so if you he is here from maryland and his familys name wasnt on the list but there was a policy and under state law if there is proof of policy the burden is on the insured to improve and they didnt have to do that. Spoke to give me an example of a case where they said the family had been paid. That he was from miami a survivor and was on thehe knew they had a policy and they acknowledged there had been a polished a policy and there was a token payment from germany, but it had nothing to do with the factthen he applied to icheck and they said your dad was paid, but they didnt provide him with any documents. What could he do . He had no documents and he had no basis to appeal because he had to take that at face value. We later got documents through the German Embassy because they had been making a little bit of trouble for people and the records there is a repayment document that says that on november 9, 1938 his dad cashed in the policy. He was taken to a camp that day. The odyssey were stopped on the way to cash in his policy is preposterous. Even if that has happened that money went straight to a blocked account and they were not able to access that. Thank you very much and we will take this under advisement and we can do. And see what we can do. The washington journal live every day with news and policy is that impact you. Coming up wednesday morning we will talk about the security of the global oil supply. Also a California Democratic congressman will join us to discuss gun violence prevention and michelle talks about her new book open border. Who is funding americas destruction. Be sure to watch the washington journal live at seven eastern wednesday morning. Joined the session. 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Watch live on cspan or listen live on the go using the free app. Medical practitioners and experts examine current innovation. During this portion women researchers okay. It is a special privilege and i have to tell you this feels really good to be kicking off our first panel, a panel of Women Leaders are leading us off today. I think nothing could be better