As Allianz Sponsors PGA Event in Boca, Ros-Lehtinen Again Calls on Insurance Giant to End Unjust Treatment of Holocaust Survivors

Statement

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen (R-FL), Chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, made the following statement regarding Allianz's sponsorship of the Allianz Championship, an official PGA Champions Tour Event taking place this week in Boca Raton, Florida:

"For seven decades, Allianz has failed to fulfill its obligations to Holocaust survivors. Following World War II, survivors were denied access to funds they were owed when companies like Allianz told survivors they lacked the proper documentation to make claims on their families' insurance policies. Allianz's decades-long refusal is an unfair and infuriating dismissal of people who lost everything to the Nazis' brutality.

"To add insult to injury, Allianz is sponsoring this event in Florida, home to one of the largest populations of Holocaust survivors in the country. Allianz should be bending over backwards to ensure that this community is granted justice, instead of making excuses and then parading its assets in front of survivors. It is far past time for Allianz to open its Holocaust-era records and pay out Holocaust-era policies."

NOTE: H.R. 890, the Holocaust Insurance Accountability Act of 2011, was authored by Ros-Lehtinen with her Florida colleague U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch (D-FL). This bipartisan measure, which currently has 72 co-sponsors, would allow survivors to avail themselves of state laws passed to allow them to have their day in court and to require European insurance companies conducting business in those states to disclose Nazi-era insurance policy information. The measure also establishes a federal right of action to recover proceeds due under the covered policies.

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