A federal judge in Mississippi has ruled that Attorney General Jim Hood cannot investigate State Farm's handling of hurricane claims after agreeing last year to drop his probe of the insurer.

Under the January 2007 agreement, State Farm agreed to reopen 30,000 hurricane claims from 2005 and pay out a minimum of $50 million to settle the claims. In return, Attorney General Hood agreed to drop his criminal probe of State Farm's handling of the claims.

U.S. District Judge David Bramlette in Natchez, Miss., ruled that State Farm's agreement with Mr. Hood, which settled a class-action lawsuit stemming from the claims dispute, is “valid, unambiguous and enforceable,” State Farm spokesman Fraser Engerman said today.

Recommended For You

Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader

Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:

  • Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
  • Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
  • Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
  • Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
NOT FOR REPRINT

© Touchpoint Markets, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more inforrmation visit Asset & Logo Licensing.