U.S. District Judge George B. Daniels, of the Southern District of New York, recently approved a class action lawsuit settlement over Holocaust insurance claims involving Assicurazioni Generali S.p.A, an Italy-based insurer. The agreement contains a special extension of a claim deadline, anticipating opening of the Bad Arolsen archive in Germany. The archive, until recently used only by the Red Cross, will contain personal details on more than 17 million people who were forced by the Third Reich into salve labor and concentration camps.

Claims based on documents obtained from the archive must be submitted within six months of the archive’s opening and no later than August 31, 2008. The deadline for all other claims is March 31.

A statement from the law firm representing the plaintiffs, Kohn, Swift & Graf P.C., of Philadelphia, noted a limitation. If Generali has already compensated a person for her or his policy, that person is not eligible for further compensation under the settlement.

Generali has paid more than $130 million on about 5,500 claims made through the International Commission on Holocaust-Era Insurance Claims. According to the attorneys’ estimates, about 3,300 more people have made additional claims.

The company issued a statement that it views the settlement as “an important step in its longstanding commitment to bring fair closure to the Holocaust-era claims process.”