Some insurance agents representing competitors of American International Group Inc. are using AIG’s federal bailout as a marketing ploy and violating fair trade practices by preying on consumers’ fears, according to the Missouri Department of Insurance.

Officials with the department and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners have published statements assuring consumers that AIG is financially sound and that policyholders have nothing to worry about.

But that hasn’t stopped agents from becoming AIG storm chasers, state insurance regulators said.

Department director Linda Bohrer, along with her counterparts nationwide, are investigating to what extent agents are cashing in on AIG’s troubles and its subsequent $85 billion bailout from the Federal Reserve Bank.

“We’re sending correspondence to agents saying that ‘Your involvement with consumers should be on the up-and-up,’” said Matt Barton, licensing manager for the department.

Citing an open investigation, Barton declined to say which rival insurance company agents have been using AIG’s bailout to their advantage but said the department did not hear complaints from Missouri consumers. Some of AIG’s competitors include State Farm, ING and Allstate.

AIG and its affiliates collected $1.16 billion in premiums last year in Missouri and paid out a combined $767.2 million in claims, losses and surrender value of policies, according to the department.

Aggressive techniques to recruit new policyholders have always occurred in the insurance industry, especially in a soft market and long before the Sept. 16 announcement of the fed’s AIG bailout, said Calvin Call, executive director of the Missouri Insurance Coalition, a trade group that represents insurance companies.

While he hadn’t heard of any specific incidences of agents raising questions about AIG’s solvency, he acknowledged not only its possibility, but probability.

“None of us are naïve,” he said. “We know that one’s famine is another’s fortune.”

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