German Insurer Targeted Over Holocaust Claims

California Insurance Commissioner Chuck Quackenbush said Tuesday that he has launched proceedings against four California subsidiaries of a German insurance company that has allegedly failed to pay claims of Holocaust victims.

The proceedings ultimately could lead to revocation of the companies’ licenses to do business in California, officials said.

Quackenbush said that research by the state Department of Insurance indicates that the German company “has significant exposure and has failed to pay Holocaust victims’ claims. As such, the companies may be guilty of other unfair business practices that are hazardous to its policyholders, creditors and the public.”

The German company, Munchener Ruckversichergungs-Gesellschaft, has four California subsidiaries, including Munich American Reinsurance Co. Officials of Munchener, the world’s largest reinsurance company, were not available for comment.

Quackenbush also said that the insurance department has launched an investigation of three other companies stemming from similar allegations of unpaid Holocaust-era claims. They are Gerling Konzern, with five California subsidiaries, Basler Lebens-Versichergungs-Gesellschaft, and Swiss Reinsurance Co., each of which has two California subsidiaries.

Quackenbush appointed Karl L. Rubenstein, an insurance examiner based in Los Angeles, as a special deputy insurance commissioner to lead the investigation. He said that a team of 100 to 150 people would be assigned to the investigation.

Quackenbush has said several times that he would consider revoking the licenses of companies that failed to honor valid Holocaust-era claims. State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), who sponsored a bill last year that gave the department increased authority in this area, has been pushing Quackenbush for several months to take such action.

In his statement, Quackenbush said departmental investigators looking through European archives have turned up letters from insurance companies discussing matters such as their “refusal to pay claims based on ‘non-Aryan’ status.”

Tuesday’s announcements came on the eve of the next meeting of the International Commission for Holocaust-era Insurance Claims, which Quackenbush helped create last year. The commission is attempting to resolve charges that thousands of claims of Holocaust survivors and heirs of people killed in the Holocaust have been improperly denied.

The commission, headed by former Secretary of State Lawrence S. Eagleburger, is set to meet today and Thursday in Jerusalem. Sources said the commission, which includes representatives of five large European-based insurance companies, U.S. and European regulators and Jewish organizations, is still divided on key issues.