ROME - The Italian insurance company Assicuriazoni Generali on Thursday agreed to pay up to $100 million to settle thousands of Holocaust-era claims.
The agreement, which came after protracted negotiations, was signed in Rome by former U.S. Secretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, chairman of the International Commission for Holocaust Era Insurance Claims, and the general manager of Generali, Giovanni Perissinotto.
''This whole exercise has taken much too long,'' a weary Eagleburger said. ''It has taken us more than a year to get here.''
Perissinotto said he hoped the agreement would bring ''closure to a matter of highest moral concern.''
No one knows yet how many Nazi-era claims Generali might end up paying. The commission is conducting a worldwide search for Holocaust survivors who may have unpaid insurance policies.
Eagleburger said the commission was adding 20,000 names unearthed in German archives by its researchers to the list, which is published on the Internet.
''It demonstrates the value of aggressively pursuing the research necessary to uncover the documents, records, and testimonies necessary to identify potential claimants and ultimately achieve justice, which has eluded us for more than half a century,'' he said.
The website now has 19,000 names, including 9,000 Italian policyholders.
The agreement signed Thursday allows Generali to deduct payments on Holocaust-era claims it has already made from the $100 million fund, according to one of Generali's lawyers, Marco Schnabl. He said the company has paid out more than $7 million in the past year.
Eagleburger said the commission is now going to set up its own mechanism to handle claims and may enlist a Generali-financed Holocaust foundation in Israel. ''We have to work out all the details,'' he said.
As part of the agreement, the commission also is helping Generali muster support for extricating itself from lawsuits over Holocaust-era claims, Eagleburger said.
Thursday's deal won a quick endorsement in Washington, where Deputy Treasury Secretary Stuart Eizenstat issued a statement saying the United States ''encourages'' resolving Holocaust-era restitution matters ''on a cooperative basis, rather than subject victims and their families to the prolonged uncertainty and delay that accompany litigation.''
The International Commission for Holocaust Era Insurance Claims includes Jewish and Holocaust survivor groups, U.S. and European regulators, the country of Israel and five European insurance companies that operated during the Nazi era and now have subsidiaries in the United States.
It was established two years ago to settle unpaid insurance policies issued between 1920 and 1945.
Many Holocaust victims or survivors were denied payment of claims after World War II because insurance companies demanded policies or death certificates as proof - something impossible for most concentration camp victims or their survivors.
The commission has persuaded insurance companies to ease their demands for documentation. People may now back up claims with diary entries noting policy payments, premium receipts, private correspondence mentioning coverage and recollections about insurance agents' visits.
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On the Net:
The International Commission on Holocaust Era Insurance Claims: http://www.icheic.org