POV: date=January 2008

Products available

Allstate sells 13 major lines of insurance, including auto insurance, home insurance, life insurance, and commercial insurance. Allstate also offers retirement and investment products, and banking services. Its advertising campaign is centered around its "Your Choice Auto" product, which offers accident forgiveness and lower deductibles.Allstate Insurance

Catastrophe exposure management

Allstate has stated intentions of reducing its exposure in hurricane-prone Florida. In November 2006, Allstate began dropping 120,000 policies that were up for renewal at that time. Governor Charlie Crist and the Florida Cabinet passed a 90-day emergency order to temporarily prevent insurance companies from dropping policies. On February 20, 2007, Florida Insurance Commissioner Kevin McCarty clarified the order, stating that insurance companies can drop policies if they satisfy certain conditions, including filing new, lower rates with the state and give customers 100 days' notice. Allstate is currently under investigation by the Florida Department of Insurance as to whether it conspired with other property insurers to artificially keep premiums high.

Allstate also currently is not renewing policies in the NYC area and on Long Island because of the threat of a major hurricane in the years to come. Homeowners policies can be written through Allstate with another company like TSC and many others.

On May 11, 2007, Allstate announced it would no longer offer a homeowners insurance product in California, however, Pacific Specialty Insurance Company homeowners insurance is available in every Californian Allstate agency.

Competition

Major insurance competitors include State Farm, Farmers Insurance Group, Nationwide, Progressive, GEICO, Liberty Mutual and USAA.

Criticism

Auto insurance claims

An investigative report in February 2007 by CNN found that major car insurance companies, like Allstate, are increasingly fighting auto insurance claims from those who incurred injuries by their insured members. In some cases, Allstate proposed settlement amounts as small as $50, asking claimants to "take it or leave it". The investigative report found that insurance companies often make it so expensive and time consuming to go to court to get full settlement amounts, that it would not be worth the victims time. The claims handled in the matter were very minor collision type losses that did not result in any ($0) damage to the car, and therefore was the insurance company protecting it assets and the premium paying public money, by keeping rates as low as possible.

Homeowners insurance