Allstate Names New Executives as CMO Leaves for ‘Personal Reasons’

Allstate Corp. has new leadership in some top executive roles following the departure of the company's chief marketing officer, the company said in a written statement.

Matthew Winter is now president of Allstate's personal lines, including automobile, home and agencies. Don Civgin, the company's chief financial officer since 2009, will now be president of Allstate Financial and oversee Answer Financial and Esurance. Steve Shebik has been promoted to CFO. Mark LaNeve, senior executive vice president and chief marketing officer, recently resigned for "personal reasons," the statement said.

Wilson said in the statement he is confident in the leadership now in place. Winter was vice chairman of American International Group Inc. and came to Allstate in 2009 to head up Allstate Financial (Best's News Service, Nov. 16, 2009). Civgin came to Allstate in August 2008 after serving as CFO for OfficeMax. Joining the senior leadership team will be Steve Verney, the company's chief risk officer. Verney is a longtime Allstate employee and has served in various management roles.

The company declined comment. The changes are the latest in a shakeup in recent years of the company's upper management.

Allstate Chief Executive Officer Thomas J. Wilson</person> said in a statement Winter and LaNeve had been working together in the past five months to establish priorities for the auto, home and agencies divisions. It was five months ago that Joseph P. Lacher, the company president who oversaw property/casualty operations, left after less than two years with the insurer (Best's News Service, July 18, 2011).

At an investors' conference in June, Wilson said the company was facing big challenges from the homeowners' business, adding the carrier is utilizing $6 billion in capital to underwrite risk and is not earning an adequate return on capital. He said he was "beating on those guys," including Lacher and the leadership in the homeowners segment, for three years. At the time, Wilson called homeowners "the worst-performing business we had."

In a February conference call, Wilson said Allstate will focus in the coming year on maintaining the profitability of its homeowners business by keeping a close eye on catastrophe-prone homeowners regions (Best's News Service, Feb. 2, 2012).

The financial performance of the company's personal lines affects it greatly. Allstate's mix of business is split approximately 95% personal lines and 5% commercial lines, according to BestLink, with primary lines being private passenger automobile and homeowners insurance. Those two lines respectively represent approximately 70% and 25% of Allstate's total book of property/casualty business.

The company's combined ratio in 2006 was 85.1, which by 2008 ballooned to 100.4, and backed off slightly to 99.4 in 2010, according to BestLink. Those numbers were slightly better than the industry composite, according to BestLink.

Allstate subsidiaries have a Best's Financial Strength Rating of A+ (Superior). Shares of Allstate Corp. (NYSE: ALL) on the afternoon of Feb. 28, were trading at $31.42, up 0.16% from the previous close. Allstate is the second-largest property/casualty writer in the country, with 2010 net premiums written of $24.8 billion, according to Best's Review.

(By Michael Buck, senior associate editor, BestWeek: [email protected])