40 Years With Allstate

I have been a loyal customer of Allstate's since I lived in New York 40 years ago. It started with a modest boat insurance policy and progressed through auto, home and liability. I've had only small claims on my auto policy over this entire time, and never a claim on my homeowners.

I moved to Boca Raton, Florida 2 1/2 years ago and naturally turned to Allstate for insurance. I was shocked to find out the cost compared to what I had been paying up North, but chose to be loyal to a company I'd done business with for such a long period of time. Imagine my wife's and my surprise when I opened the cancellation letter from them this week to find out we'd been dropped.

I am approached by Geico and others weekly to re-examine my auto insurance. I've never done so since I felt a loyalty to Allstate. Apparently that was a one-way alliance. It is obvious that in canceling my insurance that Allstate looked at the numbers and nothing else. Customer relationships didn't come into it.

You would have thought that if the insurance company and the customer formed a real partnership, long-term customers--especially those with multiple policies--would have been exempted from this cancellation. Alas, this was simply a decision made by an anonymous MBA in the actuarial department with no thought to the people who would be affected. How sad, and what a slap in the face from Allstate.

The "good hands people?" I don't think so. However, you'll excuse me if I don't have time to elaborate right now. I need to call Geico to switch my auto insurance. At least when I apply for it, someone will have to acknowledge my name and that I'm a live, breathing person by writing it down on a form. It may be the last time that will happen with them, but that will be one more time than the actuaries and executives at Allstate who focused solely on the bottom line and ignored all of the people who helped build the Company into the insurance giant it is today.

Sad.