N.Y. LIFE SET TO PAY MILLIONS IN NEARLY CENTURY-OLD CLAIMS
New York Daily News
Sept 5 2008
NY
New York Life is digging deep into its past to make good on claims
nearly a century old.
The insurer said it will seek out and compensate the heirs of Greek
policyholders that lived in the Ottoman Empire before 1915, at a cost
of up to $15 million.
The Manhattan-based insurer said it discovered unpaid policies held
by Greeks in the precursor of modern-day Turkey, in the course of
research into policies sold to Armenians who died after 1914.
The insurer, founded in 1845, will pay all valid claims on about 1,000
insurance policies issued to Greeks before 1915 that remain unpaid,
as well as $1 million to the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America.
In January 2004, New York Life agreed to pay $20 million to settle a
lawsuit over unpaid life insurance benefits for Armenian policyholders.
Similar suits have been filed by Holocaust survivors and their heirs
against European insurers.