pressure to re-open an investigation into Electric Mutual Liability Insurance Company's controversial move from Massachusetts to Bermuda last year.

Three state legislators have written to Massachusetts Division of Insurance Commissioner Linda Ruthardt urging her to look again at her department's decision to allow EMLICO to move, just months before it applied to the Supreme Court to be wound up.

She refused just this July, a year after EMLICO's Bermuda incorporation, to revisit the matter.

EMLICO's reinsurers, including a few in Massachusetts, allege that officials at General Electric-owned EMLICO, lied to Massachusetts regulators about the company's solvency in order to move to "creditor-friendly'' Bermuda. GE is EMLICO's principal creditor.

Reinsurers lament they pick up much more of GE's bill for pollution claim liabilities as a result of the EMLICO move to Bermuda. In dispute is who pays hundreds of millions of dollars worth of claims for waste disposal site liabilities.

They have filed suit against EMLICO and the insurance division, claiming approval of the move was improper.

Last week, a Cambridge-based consumer activist group, The Center for Insurance Research, also sued the insurance division for denying them access to EMLICO documents.

It is also believed that Ms Ruthardt may come under pressure from Massachusetts Governor William Weld to resolve the case. Gov. Weld is locked in a close race for the US Senate against incumbent Democrat John Kerry.

The commissioner has already heard this week from the Massachusetts House of Representatives' vice chairman for the Committee of Insurance, Antonio F.D.

Cabral.

Mr. Cabral wrote that media reports which had raised questions about the legitimacy of the move to Bermuda, and the prudence of the Division's approval, together with a recent US Attorney's Office grand jury subpoena, "have caused widespread concern about this incident of possible misconduct on the part of EMLICO and apparent carelessness by the Division''.

"Therefore,'' he concluded, "I hope that the EMLICO proceedings will be reopened immediately. Clearly, the public's right to know is paramount in this matter and the need to conduct a full, open and public review of this issue is a responsibility that the Weld administration and its Division of Insurance must take seriously.'' Ms Ruthardt's office also received a similar letter from State Rep. Paul Kujawski, forcefully calling for a re-opening of the case, saying there were too many outstanding questions that were the responsibility of the Division to have answered.

Mr. Kujawski questioned if there had been a thorough review, and what material led to the Division's conclusion. He was concerned that EMLICO received a "swift hearing and approval'' which was said to have lasted 37 minutes.

He argued: "...The public interest is not protected when there is a possibility that fraudulent information provided by the company in question to the Division is the reason approval for redomestication was granted.'' And a member of the State Senate insurance committee, Frederick E. Berry, just last week complained to the Commissioner his suspicions that many questions remained unresolved from her July review in which she refused to re-open the redomestication case.

Sen. Berry said an investigation into whether EMLICO lied about its solvency when applying to move to Bermuda was "necessary''.

"If indeed EMLICO committed fraud upon the public by deceiving the Division about its solvency, then public access to an investigation would seem prudent,'' he said.

"Not knowing if the Bermuda courts will determine allegations of fraud, it seems that a new investigation would be the responsible way to determine the charges.''