Insurance A Help For Clintons Two Policies Pay $900,000 Toward First Family’s Legal Bills

President Clinton, who a month ago bemoaned legal bills that he said might leave him broke, has gotten $900,000 toward the cause from a pair of insurance policies, and could get more.

Clinton attorney Bob Bennett confirmed Thursday that the insurers paid off in December on liability policies that covered, among other things, a legal defense against sexual harassment suits.

However, the policies do not cover the Clintons’ Whitewater-related bills.

A Clinton defense fund has been soliciting private contributions to help him in both cases. As of mid-1995, it raised $895,000.

At a news conference Jan. 11, Clinton said a Money magazine report suggesting his legal bills could leave him and first lady Hillary Rodham Clinton nearly bankrupt was “probably right.”

“I feel badly that 20 years of hard effort in savings may go away,” Clinton said.

The existence of the insurance policies was first revealed Thursday in The Wall Street Journal.

Bennett said he had contacted the companies early last year, seeking to collect on Clinton’s behalf.

The policies provide up to $2 million in coverage, meaning Clinton could get more from the insurers.

Bennett said the president still may have to pay some of the bills out of his own pocket.

The legal tab is around $2 million, and still rising.

At the White House, spokesman Mike McCurry said the Clintons “will continue to face that financial burden well after the president and the first lady leave the White House in the next century.”

McCurry said Clinton bought the wide-ranging liability policies like “many people in professional life who are more susceptible to facing lawsuits.”