New York Commissioner Slams Spitzer

"You have to accept responsibility when something like that occurs," Dopp says. "Having said that, we always understood that they were lied to and duped."

Dopp points to 3 settlements with insurance brokerage firms that Spitzer's office already has negotiated as evidence of the value of the investigations.

"We think we are at a critical juncture where we are turning the corner and bringing reform to the industry," Dopp says.

Gregory Serio, the Pataki appointee who preceded Mills as superintendent, was someone "who when the problem was revealed was eager to get to the bottom of it and had an aggressive response," Dopp says. "Serio throughout the process said that, 'We have to be aggressive not only for the customers but for the honest corporations out there.'"

But Dopp minimizes the effects a split with the New York insurance department would have on ongoing attorney general's office investigations. "We always carried a tagline thanking the insurance department for their contributions, minimal though they were," Dopp says.

Some days after Mills' remarks, the National Association of Mutual Insurance Companies joined him in criticizing the methods Spitzer has used to probe the insurance industry.

Robert Detlefsen, NAMIC public policy director, lashed out at what he termed Spitzer's "heavy-handed, self-aggrandizing tactics."

"It speaks well of Mr. Mills that he is more interested in maintaining the overall health of the industry than in grabbing headlines and preening before television cameras," he said.

New York Insurance Superintendent Howard Mills criticized New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer's insurance business probes, saying an investigation "does not need to be done in so public a way as to affect the stock of a public company and have 5,000 people lose their jobs."