"The freedom to travel is a part of our way of life and if we start denying legal travel abroad, then we give in to Osama Bin Laden, Hezbollah, and other terrorists who wish to change our way of life," said Rep. Wasserman Schultz.

Currently, life insurance companies can deny coverage to people based solely upon plans for legal travel to different international destinations.  Some of these countries, such as Israel and the Republic of Kenya have low intentional death rates, some even lower than that of the United States (Israel's intentional death rate is 11 per 100,000 compared to the United States' rate of 17 per 100,000).

"The 'Life Insurance Fairness for Travelers Act of 2005' we are introducing today will help the thousands of people who have been negatively affected simply because they travel to Israel and the West Bank and Gaza," said Rep. Ros-Lehtinen.  "I urge my colleagues to support this legislation and end this unfair practice once and for all!"

Among other important provisions, the legislation introduced today renders it unlawful for any insurer:

• to deny any person life insurance, or otherwise discriminate in the issuance, cancellation, amount of coverage, or conditions of life insurance, based upon the intent of such person to engage in future lawful foreign travel; and
• to charge rates for life insurance which are excessive or unfairly discriminatory in relation to the actuarial risk associated with future lawful foreign travel of such person.

"These economic sanctions levied by the insurance companies on our friends and allies not only punish those who stand with us in this global fight in this time of need, but energize and encourage our enemies who wage war against freedom loving people.  For this reason alone, after thoughtful deliberation but with due speed, this legislation should be adopted this calendar year," Congressman Bachus said. 

 "This is nothing more than insurance company redlining on a global basis," Rep. Israel said. "Insurance companies should leave foreign policy to Washington and diplomacy to the diplomats."

"B'nai B'rith is very concerned about the current predicament.  The fact that Americans can be penalized for travel to Israel and other countries to which it is legal for Americans to travel is unacceptable," said Eric Fusfield, Director of Legislative Affairs, B'nai B'rith International.  "The LIFT Act represents a much fairer approach to the problem - in particular it is fair to individual Americans who wish to exercise their right to travel freely."

"It is outrageous that life insurance companies would discriminate against an individual based upon future travel plans.  Hard-working Americans want to ensure that their families are taken care of in the event of something happening to them and the prohibition of life insurance polices based on future travel plans cannot be tolerated.  Every American must be assured that if they want to choose to purchase a life insurance plan they will be guaranteed coverage," said Congressman Robert Wexler. 

"We have seen too many instances of unjustified life insurance denials based on past or future travel to Israel, without any demonstration of increased risk associated with such travel," said Abraham H. Foxman, Anti-Defamation League (ADL) National Director.  "This unfair policy impacts everyone from tourists to corporate executives and to students studying abroad."

"Representing a diverse constituency in Queens and the Bronx, including one of the largest Colombian American populations in the USA, I realized that a large number of my constituents would be impacted by this policy," said Rep. Crowley.  "This is wrong for life insurance companies to flat out deny coverage to Americans for traveling to countries that are legal to travel to according to our State Department and this practice must be banned."

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