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"                      <p class=\"imgtitle\">Coakley</p>           BOSTON (Legal Newsline) - Massachusetts Attorney General Martha Coakley has announced four settlements with auto insurance companies over allegedly inaccurate at-fault insurance reports as part of her ongoing Board of Appeal Enforcement Initiative.<br /><br />As a result of the settlements involving the practices of Arbella Mutual Insurance Company, Norfolk & Dedham Mutual Fire Insurance Company, United Services Automobile Association and Electric Insurance Company, the driving records of approximately 10,000 Massachusetts drivers will be corrected.<br /><br />The settlements were made in regards to alleged violations of the state's 2009 Board of Appeal statute. The insurers were alleged to have failed to correct at-fault accident findings that were overturned by the state's Board of Appeal that were reported to private data collection companies.<br /><br />The investigation into the at-fault data reporting practices by the four insurance companies began in October 2009 following a consumer complaint that alleged the consumer had been overcharged by GECIO based on an at-fault finding made by Commerce Insurance Company. After the Board of Appeal determined the consumer was not at-fault,  the company failed to correct the report.<br /><br />The insurers, as part of the settlement, agreed to comply with the state's Board of Appeal statute going forward and to make payments to the state totaling more than $100,000. Additionally, the company's will correct the at-fault accident findings that they previously reported to private data collection companies.<br /><br />The insurers are also required by the settlement to report the at-fault accident finding corrections to insurance companies that actively use information from private databases in calculating premiums for Massachusetts drivers. Any driver who was surcharged by such an insurer as a result of an at-fault report that a settling insurer should have corrected will receive a payment from the settling insurer.<br /><br />Hanover Insurance Group, Progressive Insurance Company, GEICO, Occidental Fire & Casually, and Ameriprise Auto & Home have, since the deregulation of the auto insurance market in April 2008, used private databases to rate Massachusetts customers.<br /><br />\"If this problem had not been caught and corrected, these at-fault reports could have resulted in premium overcharges to Massachusetts drivers for years to come,\" Coakley said. \"<br /><br />Similar agreements have also been reached with Commerce Insurance Company, Metropolitan Property & Casualty, Liberty Mutual Insurance Company, Peerless Insurance Company, Plymouth Rock Assurance Corporation and Pilgrim Insurance Company in February."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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