Former Agent Settles with Mo. DOI

A former St. Louis insurance agent with A.J. Gallagher agreed to a settlement with the Missouri Department of Insurance that will require him to be supervised, the department said Wednesday.

Jeffrey Combs made efforts to promote a Caribbean insurance carrier, Ameristar, to physicians in the St. Louis and Kansas City areas. Ameristar was barred from selling medical malpractice insurance in Missouri because of regulatory violations in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Under the terms of the settlement, Combs is required to be supervised by another licensed producer to make sure he does not negotiate a contract with an insurance company or discuss the company with a potential customer, unless the company is authorized to do business in Missouri. He must also pay a $2,500 fine to the Missouri State School Fund.

A.J. Gallagher, based in Itasca, Ill., paid a voluntary $50,000 in February 2004 for negotiating unauthorized malpractice insurance and agreed to correct problems within the agency that led to the investigation. The executives involved with Ameristar are no longer with the agency and Gallagher has shifted all its medical malpractice insurance work in St. Louis to its Kansas City office.