The company has also agreed to be more forthcoming in future auto safety investigations, reports USA Today. State Farm Insurance, the USA's largest insurer, is suing the nations's number two automaker because it wants to be reimbursed for millions of dollars in claims it paid for fire damage it says was caused by faulty ignition switches in Ford vehicles. State Farm asked the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA) of the US last May to decide whether Ford failed to tell the Government everything it knew about the cause of fire, it said. The settlement, expected this month, will be the third time in a year that Ford has been officially rebuked by NHTSA for not disclosing enough in safety probes.

The agency sent letters to Ford last May and June, criticising the company's responses during probes ofrollovers in Ford Bronco II sport-utility vehicle and engine stalling in some 1983-95 Ford, Lincoln and Mercury vehicles. Ford says it complied with federal requests in all of the cases, according to the report. But it is not contesting the broad charges related to ignition-switch fires. The company also acknowledges that it erred last year when it told NHTSA it had provided some fire reports. "Our policy will be to err on the side of providing too much information," says Ford spokesman Jim Cain.

"We want to free overselves from having to be in the position of defending our reputation and our product because an attorney can point to a handful of documents that have not been submitted to NHTSA in an investigation," he said. (PTI)