HEARING SLATED ON SURVIVORS' CLAIMS; HOLOCAUST TALKS TO PRESSURE BANKS.Byline: Eric Leach Daily News Staff Writer The California Department of Insurance The California Department of Insurance (CDI), established in 1868, is the angency charged with overseeing the regulation of insurance regulations, enforcing statutes mandating consumer protections, educating consumers, and fostering the stability of insurance markets in the state will hold a hearing Tuesday in Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. on unpaid insurance claims to survivors of the Holocaust as part of a daylong conference on developments related to insurance, stolen art and Nazi gold 'Nazi gold' refers to the assets in gold transferred by Nazi Germany to overseas banks during the Second World War. The regime maintained a policy of looting the assets of its victims to finance the war, collecting the looted assets in central depositories. . ``We expect that Tuesday's hearings will continue to place pressure on the insurance companies, Swiss banks and German companies that benefited from victims of the Holocaust,'' said Rabbi Abraham Cooper Abraham Cooper (1787-1868), English animal and battle painter, the son of a tobacconist, was born in London. At the age of thirteen he became an employee at Astley's Amphitheatre, and was afterwards groomed in the service of Sir Henry Meux. , associate dean of the Wiesenthal Center. ``It will give the people of California the opportunity to put a human face on this issue. It is not merely a matter of money. It's an issue of justice.'' California Insurance Commissioner California Insurance Commissioner is an elected executive office position in California who is in charge of the California Department of Insurance. The current Insurance Commissioner is Steve Poizner. Chuck Quackenbush has said he believes survivors are owed billions of dollars in unpaid benefits, interest and punitive damages Monetary compensation awarded to an injured party that goes beyond that which is necessary to compensate the individual for losses and that is intended to punish the wrongdoer. . His office is working with other state insurance commissioners to force companies to pay up on policies sold to Jews who had property seized by the Nazis and who died in the Holocaust. The hearing Tuesday will be held at the Simon Wiesenthal Center  This article is currently semi-protected to prevent sock puppets of currently blocked or banned users from editing it. and Museum of Tolerance The Museum of Tolerance is a multimedia museum in Los Angeles, California, with an associated museum in New York City, designed to examine racism and prejudice in the United States and the world with a strong focus on the history of the Holocaust. , 9786 W. Pico Blvd. in Los Angeles. It will begin at 9:15 a.m. and will be followed in the afternoon with a program presented by the Wiesenthal Center. At 1 p.m., Rabbi Marvin Hier, founder of the center, will join other authorities to discuss how German banks systematically took Jewish property. They will talk about what became of gold stolen from concentration camp prisoners and other victims of Nazi Germany. Three Los Angeles residents who were slave laborers in Nazi death camps and whose families' gold was stolen by the Nazis will testify. At 2:45 p.m., Shimon Samuels, European director of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, Jacque Lust of the Royal Museum of Fine Art in Belgium and Konstantin Akinsha of the Kennan Institute in Washington, D.C., will speak on the Nazis' systematic theft of some of the world's greatest art treasures. There is no charge for members of the community to attend any of the sessions. A number of Holocaust survivors are expected to speak at Tuesday's morning hearing about their attempts to reclaim insurance payments. There will be representatives of a federal class-action lawsuit filed against some of the largest insurers in Europe, along with representatives of some of the insurance companies. Also at the hearing will be an expert on insurance practices during the years leading up to World War II and the Holocaust and a representative of an insurance archeological company that searches out lost policies. ``This is a good lineup for a full morning hearing,'' said Leslie Tick, staff counsel for the state insurance department. ``I'm hoping that we'll get the word out to potential claimants. I'm also hoping we will learn what the companies are doing to rectify this situation.'' This is the second hearing held by the state insurance department in Los Angeles on this issue. On Nov. 24, Quackenbush along with the National Association of Insurance Commissioners The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) is an Internal Revenue Code Section 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which seeks to organize the regulatory and supervisory efforts of the various state insurance commissioners from around the United States. , held a preliminary investigatory hearing to collect information and evidence regarding the unpaid insurance claims. |
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