Advocates for Holocaust survivors in California are anxious to see how the state’s new insurance commissioner aids them in their battle against insurance companies.
Sworn in Monday in San Francisco, former appellate justice Harry Low will serve the remaining two years of Chuck Quackenbush’s four-year term.
Quackenbush resigned in July under a cloud of suspicion from his dealings with insurance companies in the wake of the 1994 Northridge earthquake.
After the resignation, survivor advocates were just about the only ones offering words of praise for Quackenbush, applauding him for his aggressive fight to get European insurers to turn over their 1920-to-1945 policyholder lists.
Low, 69, who has been keeping a low profile and was unavailable for comment, is hampered in his ability to pick up that fight immediately.
In July, a federal judge issued a temporary injunction against a California law allowing the insurance commissioner to strip state licenses of uncooperative insurers. The state has appealed that ruling.
In the meantime, Low has promised a meeting with the California Holocaust Insurance Settlement Alliance, a group seeking to get unpaid funds from Holocaust-era insurance companies into the hands of survivors and their heirs.
The date of that meeting has not yet been set, according to Richard Mahan, the Marina del Rey-based spokesman for the alliance.
“I’m sure he’s got his hands full with many issues,” Mahan said last week. “But the alliance has been told that this is going to be an issue that’s going to be presented to him as a priority.”
Members of the alliance expressed optimism that Low will also be an advocate for their cause.
“We don’t know Judge Low very well, but he has a very fine reputation from everything we have heard,” said Arthur Stern, a 75-year-old survivor and alliance member.
“We heard he is going to pursue the matter as aggressively as his predecessor,” the Beverly Hills resident added. “We’re very hopeful things will go back to the way they were.”
During a six-month push by Quackenbush beginning last December, Holocaust-era insurance companies seemed to be on the hot seat every few weeks. Lawyers for the state were continually prodding them, often in public hearings, for policyholder lists, which advocates hoped would eventually lead to settlements.
Quackenbush claimed as one of his major victories getting three Dutch companies to agree to release their lists and contribute $4.2 million to a fund for the state’s indigent Holocaust survivors.
Steven Koff, the regional director of B’nai B’rith of Southern California, is a member of the alliance’s executive committee who wants to see that aggressiveness rekindled.
“When Quackenbush was in charge of this activity, things were happening,” Koff said last week. “With his resignation, the state insurance department is still active and involved — we got a briefing from them two weeks ago — but I don’t think this is at the forefront of activity as it was in recent months.”
Koff said one good thing is that Gov. Gray Davis is getting more involved. His specially appointed liaison to the Jewish community, Terri Smooke, “met with us and assured us that the governor is deeply interested in continuing to cover what Commissioner Quackenbush had begun,” Koff said.
Low, a San Francisco resident, was the presiding justice of the California Court of Appeals for nine years before retiring in 1992. Before that, he was a superior court judge for nine years and a municipal court judge for seven years.
In late August, Low was confirmed 34-0 by the state Senate and 71-0 by the Assembly.
Law school professor Clark Kelso, who served as interim insurance commissioner until Monday, will remain at the department to assist in the transition.
Also helping in the transition will be Dan Edwards, who resigned his post as deputy commissioner in the state insurance department in July.
Edwards was the department’s leader on Holocaust-era insurance issues. But since he was an appointee, he said he was forced to resign when Quackenbush stepped down.
Leslie Tick of San Francisco has taken over the bulk of Edwards’ duties, retaining her title as senior staff counsel with the department of insurance.
As of last week, she hadn’t yet met with Low. But she did say, “All indications are that we will continue to have this at the top of our agenda and will continue to fight for the rights of claimants.”
Tick said California officials will continue the fight within the state and through the state’s membership on the International Commission of Holocaust Era Insurance Claims.
Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los Angeles and a member of the alliance’s executive committee, blasted the ICHEIC for some of its recent actions, including an agreement that might let European insurance companies “sneak into the back door of an otherwise fair slave-labor settlement” and pay only a fraction of what they owe survivors and their heirs.
“There is a sense of outrage,” Cooper added.