Competing federal and state investigators are rushing todisclose information to the news media about their investigationsof the insurance industry, a regulator told a recent underwritersmeeting.

The comments came from Audrey Samers, deputy superintendent andgeneral counsel for the New York State Insurance Department, at ameeting earlier this week of the Minneapolis-based ProfessionalLiability Underwriting Society in New York.

Ms. Samers told the group that the Securities and ExchangeCommission and the New York attorney general's office are "racingto get press coverage."

The regulator related that minutes after meeting withrepresentatives from the SEC and AG's office, she's gotten cellphone calls from newspaper reporters asking her to confirm that theattorney general has asked her to take certain actions.

"We're not used to doing our examinations in the press," sheremarked.

Ms. Samers spoke at a session about ethics in theproperty-casualty industry and the business practices environmentsince New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer brought civil andcriminal charges against brokers and insurers involved incommercial insurance bid-rigging.

During the session, some speakers criticized the media for itsreporting of the insurance industry scandals.

Among the critics was claims professional Ann Marie Marson, asenior vice president at Richmond, Va.-based James River Insurance,who suggested that negative perceptions fueled by press reportshave now effectively erased years of work aimed at changing publicopinion of insurers by instilling best practices.

But Stephen Sills, chief executive officer of DarwinProfessional Underwriters in Farmington, Conn., said press accountshave been fair in reporting complex subjects. "There are peoplethat have done things they shouldn't have done," he said.

"I think that the disinfectant of the sunlight from the frontpage of the newspaper wakes up a lot of people as to the way theyshould be doing things a lot better than a memo from the CEO," Mr.Sills commented.