State officials again have blocked two subsidiaries of the once-prominent Seibels Bruce Group Inc. insurance company from selling policies in the state without approval.

The company’s South Carolina Insurance Co. and Consolidated American Insurance Co. subsidiaries have been placed voluntarily under the administrative supervision of the South Carolina Department of Insurance for at least six months because the businesses failed to meet minimum financial requirements.

State law requires the department to place restrictions on an insurer whose financial condition becomes hazardous to the public.

The law requires a company offering multiple lines of insurance to have at least $1.5 million in capital and another $1.5 million of surplus assets beyond its liabilities, said Ann Roberson, spokeswoman for the Insurance Department.

“The poor financial condition” of the now-restricted insurers results largely from asbestos liability and environmental claims from policies written in the 1980s in California, Washington and Oregon, and from workers’ compensation claims in California and Arizona, Roberson said.

Rick Silver of the public-relations firm Chernoff Newman Silver Gregory, which represents the Seibels Bruce, would not comment.

Seibels Bruce once was one of the nation’s largest property and casualty insurers, with roots going back to the post-Civil War era called Reconstruction. But it lost $55 million during the 1990s, and S.C. officials in 2002 put three subsidiaries under supervision for six months.

Those subsidiaries were the two restricted now, plus Catawba Insurance Co., which is not under state supervision now.

That previous restriction came after Seibels Bruce Group sold an Arizona workers’ compensation policy that S.C. regulators told the insurer not to issue. When the insurer canceled the policy, the policyholder sued and won.

Seibels Bruce shareholders in February 2004 approved a reverse stock split that made it a private company.

Reach McWilliams at (803) 771-8308 or jmcwilliams@thestate.com.