HARTFORD, Connecticut (AP) — The St. Paul Travelers insurance company has agreed to stop paying “contingent commissions” to brokers and agents to steer business to insurance companies, Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal said yesterday.In August, the St. Paul, Minnesota-based company settled a bid-rigging investigation for $77 million in a deal with Connecticut, Illinois and New York. The company agreed to pay restitution and penalties and adopt reforms.

In November, the attorneys general for the three states told St. Paul Travelers and three other major insurance companies that they must end special commissions to agents and brokers by January 1 as agreed to in the earlier settlement.

ACE Group Holdings Inc. of Bermuda, American International Group Inc. of New York, Zurich American Insurance Co. Inc. and St. Paul Travelers had agreed to end contingent commissions when 65 percent of an insurance line is sold by companies that don’t pay the commissions.

In November, the companies were told that the 65 percent “tipping point” was reached in automobile, homeowners and several other insurance products.

A lawyer for St. Paul Travelers said in a December 29 letter to Blumenthal and the attorneys general in Illinois and New York that as of Monday it would stop paying contingent commissions in several insurance business lines. It will stop paying contingent fees in all insurance lines by January 1, 2008, and will instead use a “purely fixed commission programme”.

A spokeswoman for St. Paul Travelers in Hartford would not comment yesterday.

Blumenthal said he believes the contingent fees will eventually disappear as Travelers and other insurers abandon the practice.