Insurers' trade groups are expressing outrage that Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood reportedly referred to carriers as "Nazis" in a luncheon talk last week.

The National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies said Mr. Hood, who has brought a major lawsuit against home insurers over hurricane water damage, was "hysterical and irresponsible" and the American Insurance Association called his comments "scurrilous."

Speaking Thursday in Jackson, Miss., Mr. Hood said insurers are "in lockstep, like Nazis locking arms, coming at those people down there on the coast," according to an Associated Press report.

Mr. Hood has filed suit in state court seeking to compel insurers who provided windstorm coverage to pay property owners' water damage claims, arguing that wind driven storm surge is the cause.

Insurers have resisted, saying such damage is excluded by policy language that excludes flood damage, a position supported by a recent decision from U.S. District Court Judge L.T. Senter Jr. in Gulfport, Miss.

"Now that Mr. Hood's inspired exercise in justice has met some resistance, his public rhetoric seems to get more hysterical and irresponsible," said Charles M. Chamness, NAMIC president and chief executive officer.

The attorney general in his talk at a restaurant luncheon, sponsored by the State Capitol press corps and Mississippi State University's John C. Stennis Institute of Government, according to organizer Philip Pierce, referred to "robber barons."

Mr. Hood said he thought "what insurance companies hope, they can bob and weave and drag it out and our taxpayer money will hit the ground down there and the pressure will be let off, and they can walk away," AP reported.

Mr. Chamness said, "The fact remains that no private insurer ever collected a dime for flood coverage. Mr. Hood would force them to pay flood claims anyway in direct contravention of the principles of risk sharing and underwriting on which the property-casualty industry is built."

The attorney general's suit, according to Mr. Chamness "could be economically disastrous for Mississippians. If insurers must pay claims for losses their policies didn't cover, they will be forced to raise premiums to cover every conceivable peril, irrespective of whether it's excluded in the contract. That could make homeowners insurance--and thus homeownership itself-- unaffordable for many citizens of Mississippi."

He said Mr. Hood's "audacious assault on insurance contracts" would be "another major catastrophe" for Mississippi.

Mr. Hood responded by e-mail that he did "not equate the insurance companies with Nazis. I said they took their marching orders in lock step like Nazis. I am not going to get into a war of words. If they are so confident in their policies, why don't they quit with the [legal] delay tactics and meet me in court?"

He said regarding Judge Senter's decision that it had no impact on his case in Mississippi because, "The state courts interpret state law."

Marc Racicot, the AIA president who is a former Montana Attorney General and Governor, wrote Mr. Hood asking him to refrain from further such comment and saying in part that, "comparing the insurance response to this unprecedented natural disaster to the Holocaust is appalling.

"Also appalling is your comparison of tens of thousands of insurance company representatives who have been working tirelessly to help settle Hurricane Katrina claims to Nazis. Your inflammatory and scurrilous rhetoric in that regard is stunningly careless and inappropriate.

"In fact, dozens of insurance companies have worked around the clock since Hurricane Katrina came ashore, handling more than 500,000 claims in Mississippi alone, and paying billions of dollars to Mississippi homeowners and businesses as compensation for their losses.

"These insurers will continue working diligently and professionally until all Hurricane Katrina claims are successfully settled, so that Mississippians can reconstruct their homes and businesses, and resume their lives."

This article updated. April 19,.1:24 a.m.

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Insurers Irate Over Hood 'Nazis' Comment

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