Official: State Farm warned NHTSA on Toyota in '07

* State Farm flagged problem after seeing trend
* Accidents involved models 'consistent with' Toyota recall
* Other insurers reviewing past Toyota claims

By Nick Carey

DETROIT, Feb 8 (Reuters) - Private insurer State Farm
informed a U.S. government regulator of a worrying trend of
vehicle-caused accidents involving Toyota Motor Corp (7203.T)
as far back as late 2007, an official at the company said.

"When you start to see significant claims activity that
indicates that there may be widespread problems with a product,
that's when you go to the NHTSA," said company spokesman Kip
Diggs. "There had to have been significant activity, a
noticeable trend, for that to happen."

Bloomington, Illinois-based State Farm is America's largest
auto insurer, with 42.4 million auto insurance policies. That
gives it a U.S. market share of roughly 18 percent, according
to industry trade association the Insurance Information
Institute.

Diggs said the company contacted the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration in "late 2007" and had been in
touch with the regulator an unspecified number of times since
then.

Toyota has been hit by an embarrassing recall of more than 8
million vehicles worldwide, which has raised questions about
the quality standards and credibility of the Japanese
automaker.

Diggs said that the models involved in the incidents State
Farm had brought to the attention of the NHTSA were "consistent
with the voluntary recall undertaken by Toyota."

Other insurers said they had not seen such a trend.

"We have not seen such a pattern," said Steve Witmer, a
spokesman for Madison, Wisconsin-based American Family
Insurance Group, the No. 10 U.S. auto insurer with a market
share of 2.1 percent.

However, Insurance Information Institute President Bob
Hartwig said that few insurers beyond State Farm had a big
enough auto insurance business to determine a trend like this.

He added that State Farm's insurance data had also been
critical in tracking problems with tires made by Bridgestone
Corp (5108.T) unit Firestone to rollover incidents involving
U.S. automaker Ford Motor Co's (F.N) Explorer models a decade
ago.

"State Farm helped crack the problem with Firestone tires
and few other (auto) insurers have the scale to do what they
can," Hartwig said.

But other insurers are apparently going back over accidents
involving Toyota models to determine whether they may have been
caused by a vehicle fault instead of the driver.

"We're currently reviewing claims that may be affected by
the Toyota recalls," said Leah Knapp, a spokeswoman for No. 4
U.S. auto insurer Progressive. "Right now it's too soon to say
how many customers may be affected, but at this point there's
no indication that it will be a significant number."
(Reporting by Nick Carey, editing by Matthew Lewis)