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What is going on with Allstate Insurance? I have never seen so many Allstate agencies for sale, while at the same time, the company has launched an aggregive recruiting campaign to bring on hundreds of new agents. If you're an Allstate agent please explain what is going on with the company.

The word is that Allstate and many other direct writers want larger agencies and with at least one direct writer, they are offering incentives for the smaller agencies to cash out. To Allstate's credit, they allow their agency owners to sell their agencies, I don’t believe any of the other direct agency writers allow for that. While having a captive agency is a great way to start a career and for some it works very well even over their entire careers, for those who want to move on, starting an independent agency is a great way to go. I have a number of excellent resources on my website for those looking to go independent.

Allstate is caught in that death spirial of bad rates, lack of clear corporate direction, waging war on its agency owners with major control issues for independent contractors, bad reputations and trying to find the winning strategy to market through agencies and online.

Like many large corporations, and insurance companies in particular, Allstate senior managers are out of touch with current consumer wants and needs in the personal lines insurance marketplace, and they've made some pretty bad decisions regarding the positioning of Allstate as a value provider rather than a low rate provider. Truly, Allstate managment feels that the only reason large numbers of potential and former clients don't come lining up for Allstate coverage is that lazy, overpaid agents aren't devoting enough efforts to cold call at dinertime or staying open on Saturday afternoons to field what is probably an abundance of rate inquiry calls.

Allstate has withdrawn its branded personal property HO policies in a number of states, non renewed thousands of HO policies for risk issues that were OK in the growth/'who cares about underwriting?' years and taken rate increases that often put its policies out of reach at an economic time where most people care about costs rather than brand loyalty.

Allstate agency owners scramble to retain, beg and cajole to grow or maintain, and the corporation fails to accept blame for the broad corporate direction. It's a mess for mose Allstate agency owners, with no end in sight.

I truly feel that direct writers play a key role as they bring in a lot of new blood into our industry. However, I would not label all Insurance Companies as doing the things you mentioned, my experience on the Independent Agency side is that you truly have some terrific companies who are innovative in brining some very good insurance products for agencies to market. They are very good to their agencies, unlike what you have experienced with this one company. Nevertheless all Insurance companies should not be lumped in with the tactics of one or two insurance companies.