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German insurer Allianz has rescinded its rights to sponsor the Boca Raton PGA Champions tournament after providing a decade of support to the event.
The decision draws to a conclusion its thorny history with a community of South Florida Holocaust survivors and their families, who have been long time critics of the multinational insurer’s involvement in the event.
The Miami Herald reported that hundreds of Holocaust survivors have been clamouring for the insurer to quit the PGA tourney in their area, given that they believe they have yet to be justly compensated for unfulfilled policies that were sold to European Jews in the 1930s and the 1940s.
However, Allianz emphasized in a statement that the survivors’ “protests did not play a role in our decision to end our sponsorship.”
“While our experience has been positive, we are taking a fresh look at our brand and advertising approach and have decided to move in a new direction,” Allianz said in a statement to the Herald. The company’s sponsorship of the seniors’ golf event was up for renewal this year after a decade of partnership with the PGA.
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The survivors’ community has been persistent in petitioning for monetary remuneration for the allegedly unfulfilled policies, claiming that the insurer still owes them at least $2.5 billion in payouts.
However, the federal courts, including the US Supreme Court, have rejected their attempts to sue the insurer, upholding similar directives from the Obama administration, the Justice Department and foreign firms that have maintained that these survivors should petition a Holocaust claims commission formed in 1998 to resolve their insurance policy disputes.
Allianz has publicly admitted to its role in the atrocities of the Second World War, but has publicly apologized and has taken steps to address the grievances levelled against the company by the war’s survivors. It said it has met its obligation to a majority of the survivors who have filed for claims through the International Commission on Holocaust Insurance Claims.
“While we cannot undo any aspect of our company’s history, we can learn from it and work to make sure the horrors of the Holocaust are never again repeated,” Allianz said in a 2012 statement.
