Under the agreement with the states, the St. Paul, Minn.-based company apologized for improper conduct and agreed to adopt reforms.

"St. Paul Travelers has joined the growing number of insurers, brokers and agents who have pledged to make the market for insurance coverage more transparent and competitive," Mr. Spitzer said in an announcement. He said the agreement will benefit "all consumers, from individuals buying car insurance to small businesses to large corporations."

Mr. Mills said the company would be compensating policyholders who were economically harmed by St. Paul Travelers' past bid-rigging activity. The agreement calls for $37 million to go to such policyholders.

He said the insurer would institute reforms so its consumers are given more information about their insurance transactions. Broken down, the agreement also calls for the company to pay penalties of $24 million to New York and $8 million each to Connecticut and Illinois.

As described in the Assurance of Discontinuance agreement between the states and company, an investigation found St. Paul's made improper use of finite reinsurance to bolster both its own financial results and those of its clients.

Mr. Spitzer's office said, for example, in the years 1999 through 2002, St. Paul entered into aggregate excess-of-loss reinsurance contracts with Underwriters Reinsurance Company in Barbados, despite a side agreement that any losses suffered by the insurer would be made up by St. Paul.

According to the investigators, the dealings with Underwriters Reinsurance involved secret side agreements that were kept from company auditors.

The New York investigation also found that St. Paul Travelers made undisclosed payments to insurance brokers and agents in exchange for business referrals and participated in a scheme to fix insurance prices in the excess casualty area.

In its apology, St. Paul Travelers said it "acknowledges that certain of its employees violated acceptable business practices and St. Paul Travelers' own standards of conduct by engaging in improper bidding practices and certain 'finite insurance' activities. St. Paul Travelers apologizes and has enacted business practice reforms to ensure that these incidents do not occur again. Further, St. Paul Travelers has agreed to support legislation eliminating contingent compensation for brokers and agents."

Among evidence of bid-rigging cited in the assurance is an e-mail from a broker at Marsh & McLennan Companies to a St. Paul underwriter asking the insurer to provide a phony bid for an insurance contract that was being steered to one of St. Paul's competitors, Zurich.

The day after receiving the e-mail, St. Paul responded by issuing a quote 30 percent higher than Zurich's bid, according to the assurance.

Since 2004, the joint insurance industry probe by the New York Attorney General's Office and the New York Insurance Department has resulted in guilty pleas from 20 insurance company executives and officers, and the recovery of approximately $3 billion for consumers and workers' compensation plans.

RenaissanceRe, based in Bermuda, said the company has submitted an offer to the SEC to settle its investigation relating to the company's restatement of its financial statements for the years ended December 31, 2001, 2002 and 2003.

The company said that without admitting guilt it would pay a civil penalty of $15 million and retain an independent consultant to review certain internal controls, policies and procedures as well as the design and implementation of the review conducted by independent counsel reporting to the nonexecutive members of the company's board.

RenaissanceRe said the proposed settlement, which has the support of the SEC staff, remains subject to approval by the SEC commissioners and by the federal court in which the SEC's complaint against the company will be filed.

Disposition of the SEC's investigation relating to the company's restatement would not dispose of the ongoing investigation by the United States Attorney's Office for the Southern District of New York, which the company has previously disclosed in its filings with the SEC.

Among the finite deals that came under SEC scrutiny and caused the company to restate its financial results was the reinsurer's sale of a $50 million face amount of reinsurance recoverables for $30 million to Inter-Ocean.

The company accounted for this as two transactions--a traditional reinsurance contract and a sale of reinsurance recoverables. The company later admitted that it should have been accounted for as a single transaction and that it lacked the necessary risk transfer to be accounted for as ceded reinsurance and a sale of reinsurance recoverables.

RenaissanceRe said it continues to contest a securities class action lawsuit that has resulted.

Last year RenaissanceRe Holdings Ltd. Chief Executive Officer James Stanard received a notice that SEC staff recommended a civil enforcement action against him for violating securities laws.

RenaissanceRe also said then that it understood that the SEC separately sent a Wells Notice to Michael Cash, a former officer of the company. Mr. Cash, a Bermuda citizen, resigned following his refusal to voluntarily accept an SEC subpoena calling for his testimony in its investigation into the restatements.

The company said today it "cannot and will not comment further on the proposed settlement other than to say this is a significant step toward our goal toward putting these matters behind us."