Report names slave policy issuers

SAN FRANCISCO - Insurance companies that issued policies to slaveholders are being revealed by the California Department of Insurance in an effort activists say could bolster the case for reparations for descendants of slaves. <br> <br> The department planned to release a report Wednesday listing the names of eight insurance companies that issued policies to slave owners, said Leslie Tick, the agency&#39;s senior staff counsel. The department also was to make available a database with the names of about 600 insured slaves and about 400 slaveholders. <br> <br> The records include policies taken out by slave owners who paid premiums and received money if a slave died, as well as documents referring to the practice of insuring shiploads of slaves traveling from Africa to the United States. <br> <br> ``Slaves were not considered human beings,&#39;&#39; said Marie Davis, president of the San Mateo, Calif., branch of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. ``They were considered as property.&#39;&#39; <br> <br> Davis, who is also chair of the NAACP&#39;s California State Reparations Committee, said the documents will provide proof that slave owners collected insurance money when slaves died, instead of the money going to slaves&#39; families. <br> <br> The insurance department also found evidence the practice was not limited to Africans. One company reported a group insurance policy on about 700 Chinese laborers, Tick said. <br> <br> California appears to be the first state to require insurance companies to submit data on slave policies they&#39;ve issued, according to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners. <br> <br> About 1,350 life, property and casualty insurance companies doing business in California were required to report to the insurance department under a law that took effect on Jan. 1, 2001. About 92 percent of the companies have responded, Tick said. <br> <br> The companies had to report whether they or their predecessors issued insurance policies to slaveholders before 1865, providing coverage for damage to or death of slaves. <br> <br> Although the companies were licensed to do business in California, the policies they or their predecessors wrote were issued elsewhere, Tick said. <br> <br> ``These companies, they made money from the enslavement of our foreparents, and our government was a participant in the process,&#39;&#39; said the Rev. Jesse Jackson, adding that he plans to examine the report and confer with attorneys. <br> <br> ``I hope they move toward settlement, and redress the egregious crime against humanity of slavery, and their role in it,&#39;&#39; Jackson said. <br> <br> In early April, three slave descendants filed suit against Aetna insurance company, FleetBoston Financial Corp. and railroad giant CSX on behalf of themselves and millions of other blacks, claiming the companies - or their corporate predecessors - unjustly profited from slavery. <br> <br> ``Slavery is certainly a scar on our country&#39;s history,&#39;&#39; said Nicole Mahrt, spokeswoman for the western regional office of the American Insurance Association. ``It&#39;s difficult to go back and apply today&#39;s morality retroactively to yesterday&#39;s contracts. That&#39;s something the courts are going to have to struggle with, in separating the emotional and legal issues.&#34;