INSURANCE COMPANY STARTS SETTLEMENT OF CLAIMS BY HEIRS OF 1915 GENOCIDE
By Aram Vanetsian in Los Angeles
Radio Liberty, Czech rep.
Nov 13 2006
New York Life Insurance Co. has started to pay compensations to more
than 2,000 heirs of victims of the Armenian genocide.
The company agreed to pay compensation to Armenian heirs and legal
successors who had been insured by the company in Western Armenia
and Turkey and fell victim to the 1915 massacres of Armenians in
Ottoman Turkey.
Vartkes Yeghian, one of the lawyers who had brought a case against
New York Life, said the corresponding committee had accepted 2,515 of
the 5,692 claims and sums began to be paid on Saturday to decedents
found eligible to compensation.
Yeghian explained that people living outside Armenia will simply get
bank checks in envelops and will cash them at banks. In the case with
Armenia an agreement was reached only with one bank and the sum has
already been transferred to that bank.
All 5,692 applicants will receive a letter notifying them that their
applications was either accepted or rejected.
According to Yeghian, these letters will be received in the USA within
several days, and in Armenia it may take up to a couple of weeks.
The greatest share of the sum, around $3,600,000, has been transferred
to Armenia where 1,254 people are eligible for compensation. The
second largest destination is the United States, to where $2,700,000
have been transferred for 896 people, the third is France, and the
fourth is Canada. In total, sums will be received in 26 countries.
The total sum to be paid is $7,954,000. A little more than $3,000,000
will remain, which lawyers will distribute among charity organizations.
Vartkes Yeghian also said that money have already been received from
the French Axa Insurance company. "We are only waiting for names to
be posted on the internet, as it was done in the case with New York
Life. The French government’s consent is needed for that."
Names of four to five thousand Armenians insured at the French company
will appear on the internet in several weeks.
(Note to readers: More information about the Axa settlement can be
found at )