I worked for Allstate for 35 years and held a number of positions both in the field and home office. I retired in November 2020, taking the RIF package. Allstate has always struggled to grow market share organically; rather, they purchase it i.e. Esurance, National General, etc. Not sure how long it is going to take but there’s going to be a seismic shift from exclusive agent distribution model to a direct/independent distribution model… You can already buy the exact same Allstate policy at Allstate.com for less than you can going through an agent.
10 replies (most recent on top)
"IF YOU THINK IT'S EXPENSIVE TO HIRE A PROFESSIONAL, WAIT UNTIL YOU HIRE AN AMATEUR."
Agents see multiple issues of poorly written policies that lack the proper protection every day. Hire an amateur; I feel sorry for anyone who has that result blow up in their face.
Don't say I did not warn you.
Allstate cannot write any type of volume in the IA space and the direct business that is being written is mainly trash. Allstate should release the net retention and loss ratio on direct business which i would guess would show it shouldn’t be priced 7% lower. IA business will have low loss ratios and decent retention but they have yet to figure that out in over 30 years. They should just open a new company for direct like Progressive and separate the trash out….but then they would have to show the numbers and it would run at above 100% CR like eSurance. The reason they keep hiring EAs is that they cannot write business in either of the two channels and need something to prop up the beast that will make money for shareholders. A Progressive sale would be interesting as they keep trying to enter the EA space and have a great auto product. I would hope regulators wouldn’t approve that because those cost synergies would cost too many jobs. I personally think that TG will fail and that in 3-5 years a new leadership group will bring it back to the basics. Allstate will continue growing slowly and returning good returns to shareholders with a good rebuilt claims service. Allstate isn’t dying just because it cannot keep up with Progressive/GEICO.
Why is Allstate advertising on LinkenIn for new Allstate agents when they want to go direct and are about to be sold off in pieces to Progressive?
What a. S. S. H o l e came up with 30% new business and 7 on renewal
@Boss Patel-Progressive does have a homeowner product through ASI. However, it is light years behind Allstate’s home product.
It is very difficult to build a home insurance product organically. Here is the home owners market share report:
Rank Group/company Direct premiums written (1) Market share (2)
1 State Farm $19,717,032 17.9%
2 Allstate Corp. 9,773,497 8.9
3 USAA Insurance Group 7,362,747 6.7
4 Liberty Mutual 6,991,283 6.3
5 Farmers Insurance Group of Companies 6,043,865 5.5
6 Travelers Companies Inc. 4,866,357 4.4
7 American Family Insurance Group 4,442,467 4.0
8 Nationwide Mutual Group 3,344,181 3.0
9 Chubb Ltd. 3,113,149 2.8
10 Progressive Corp. 1,897,225 1.7
Remember, Wilson graduated from the Sears School of thinking. One of the last great assets of Sears was craftsmen tools. It was sold off to the highest bidder. Monkey see monkey do.
Progressive can come in and fix the Allstate auto product by converting it to their platform and pricing sophistication. Moreover, Progressive can adopt the Allstate home product platform and run with it. Moreover, Progressive is not giving up any margins by pricing their direct business lower than their agent business.
Unfortunately, the 35 year folks that do nothing in Northbrook will not be invited to the party that Progress-All will be throwing. Progressive will be administering an enem@ and quite a few folks will purged.
Progressive has a homeowners product in ASI.
Boss Patel says get back to work or you will be assigned some cultural diversity training.
Tom Wilson is a washed up, drunk ex Sears salesman. He has run this once great company into the ground due to his own personal greed…
Allstate is a bureaucratic nightmare full of 35 year employees hanging out by a water cooler that do nothing. Claims is a literal ab-----n. The Auto product is broken beyond repair. God help the clients that buy their policies online from the Allstate cesspool.
Long before this company jumps to warp speed and goes direct, it will be sold off to the highest bidder. This most likely will be Progressive that is in need of a home owner product.
Carl Icahn did not sink $400 million in Allstate because it’s a well run company. He is here to to sell this dog pile and push dim witted Wilson around….you know why? Because he can!
Agents are useless AND EXPENSIVE.
Direct or indirect.
When was the last time anyone used a travel agent?
Agents are useless