HCC Insurance Holdings which has offices here, across the US and in England and Spain has spoken against improper sales practices within the insurance industry.

The company has also voluntarily suspended payments on its subsidiaries current market service agreements even though it has no involvement in the irregularities. New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer first unveiled the practices earlier this month by suing New York-based Marsh & McLennan Cos. for allegedly arranging fake bids to steer customers to insurers that paid it the highest fees.

Bermuda-based ACE is among the insurers named in his investigation. Yesterday, chairman and chief executive for HCC Insurance Holdings Stephen L. Way, said in a press release: ?We have no involvement with any price or premium fixing and have not received any requests for information from the NY Attorney General?s office.?

Mr. Way said: ?We of course do not condone such practices and conduct our business at HCC in accordance with the highest legal and ethical standards that have been in place long before Sarbanes-Oxley.?

The speciality insurance group based in Houston, Texas however has taken voluntary action in regards to the market service agreements [MSA which several of HCC?s subsidiaries have in place.

?Several of our subsidiaries have current MSA agreements in place with certain major insurance brokers, in accordance with market practice; however, we have voluntarily suspended payments under all such agreements. It should be noted that the average total commission that we pay to our producing brokers has reduced since 2001, the start of the hard market. It should be further noted that aggressive competition among insurers in soft markets often leads to higher commissions to producers at the same time as lower premiums for insureds.?

HCC has assets of more than $5 billion, shareholders? equity of over $1 billion and is rated AA (Very Strong) by Standard & Poor?s and A+ (Superior) by A.M. Best Company.