Tenet Healthcare Corp. said it has reached a $340 million settlement with its property insurers to settle physical damage and business interruption claims stemming from Hurricane Katrina.

A spokesman for Tenet declined to name the company’s insurers but noted that “about two dozen” insurers, covering the policy period April 1st 2005 to March 31st 2006, participated in the settlement agreement.

A total of $240 million of the settlement will be recorded in the second quarter of 2006, while the remaining $100 million was previously recorded by the company, Tenet said. “A majority of the settlement we announced today was actually reimbursement for business interruption,” the spokesman noted.

Hurricane Katrina last August battered five of Tenet’s hospitals in the New Orleans area and one hospital in Mississippi. Two of the New Orleans hospitals, Lindy Boggs Medical Center and Memorial Medical Center, remain closed due to storm damage. The Dallas-based hospital system reached the agreement with its insurers out of court.

“Instead of engaging in a protracted resolution process with our insurers, we sat down with them and worked out a collaborative and equitable settlement that permits us to move forward after the devastation of Katrina,” Trevor Fetter, president and chief executive officer of Tenet, said in a statement.