Why is Allianz really holding out on paying Larry Silverstein?
A major insurance company is holding back from paying Larry Silverstein insurance money he says he is still owed from the destruction of the World Trade Center complex, the question is why?
Reuters is reporting:
Mr Silverstein, who leased the downtown site destroyed on September 11, 2001, claims Allianz still owes him $US553 million ($A708.57 million) and that a second insurer, Britain’s Royal & Sun Alliance, owes him $US250 million ($A320.33 million). He said their reluctance had slowed rebuilding at the site.
Silverstein has making a great deal of noise this week out on the streets of Manhattan with a crowd of about 200 cheering construction workers chanting “We’re going to make you pay!”
Silverstein has also been comparing his case to that of Gulf Coast homeowners who are suing for claims from Hurricane Katrina in 2005. “You can count on some insurance companies to look for every way they can think of to avoid paying up,” he is quoted as saying.
The payment dispute arose when Silverstein agreed with New York’s Port Authority on terms for the reconstruction of the new Freedom tower in April last year. Under the deal, he was granted permission to build the Freedom Tower but is required to hand it back to the Port Authority after completion.
Silverstein later filed a lawsuit in June, claiming that seven insurers had refused to provide assurances that their obligations to pay were unaffected by the April agreement. Silverstein has claimed that it is this that is holding up redevelopment at ground zero.
Allianz is now the sole remaining insurance carrier that has not affirmed they will pay out
The New York Times reported at the time:
But a lawyer for Allianz, which owes a maximum of $552.5 million at ground zero, said yesterday that the lawsuit was unnecessary, because a legal proceeding was begun nearly five years ago to determine exactly how much money is owed at ground zero under the terms of the insurance policy. He said that Mr. Silverstein was merely seeking a different venue for one of many issues now being debated in federal court.
At the end of two trials in 2004, a federal court decided that the insurers owed a maximum of $4.6 billion, more than the $3.5 billion term of the insurance policy. Silverstein had originally claimed $7 billion, attempting to prove that the crashing of the two planes into two towers constituted two separate events. The two sides have been locked in a grueling appraisal process to determine exactly how much of the $4.6 billion must be paid out.
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