He may be getting ready to head upstate to Albany where he’ll take up the post of Governor of New York, but Attorney-General Eliot Spitzer is making sure insurers and brokers stick to their agreements.

He has notified four leading insurers they will no longer be able to pay contingent commissions to brokers and agents working in personal lines.

The notice is part of several settlements between his office and Ace Insurance, AIG, St Paul Travelers and Zurich.

Under the agreements, the insurers signed up to change their broker and agent compensation structures as soon as more than 65% of insurance in a particular sector was sold without contingent commissions.

That tipping point has now been reached and Mr Spitzer is calling the insurers to account. The four companies must stop using the commissions from January 1.

Mr Spitzer’s counterparts in Connecticut and Illinois co-signed the agreements and the notices delivered this week.

But brokers say they are being made scapegoats in Mr Spitzer’s purge of the financial sector.

“These carriers are now unable to use what otherwise is a perfectly legal way to compensate their sales forces, just as is done in virtually all industries across America,” Independent Insurance Agents and Brokers of America CEO Bob Rusbuldt said.

Noting the latest move is focused on the personal lines market, he said it’s “ironic that the illegal activities uncovered by Mr Spitzer occurred in commercial lines”.