The story
In 1925, Sears held a national contest to decide the name of a new brand of car tires. After 2,253,746 name submissions from 937,886 participants, "Allstate" was chosen. Hans Simonson of Bismarck, North Dakota, received a $5,000 cash prize for his winning entry among a list of 31 he submitted. The trademark was officially registered on April 19, 1927, and the tires' new name made its debut in the spring 1927 Sears catalog.
The idea for Allstate Insurance Company came when insurance broker Carl L. Odell proposed to Robert E. Wood, his neighbor, the idea of selling auto insurance by direct mail. The idea appealed to Wood, and the proposal was sent to the Sears board of directors, which approved it. Allstate Insurance Company, named after Sears' tire line, went into business on April 17, 1931, offering auto insurance by direct mail and through the Sears catalog. This was in line with one of the objectives of a company to sell automobile insurance in the same manner as Sears sold its merchandise.
Lessing J. Rosenwald was Allstate's first board chairman, and Odell was named vice president and secretary.
In 1933, at the Century of Progress World's Fair in Chicago, Allstate's Richard E. Roskam sold insurance at a booth in the Sears pavilion. In 1934, Allstate opened its first permanent sales office in a Chicago Sears store.
In 1941, only about a quarter of US drivers had auto liability insurance. This led to the state of New York passing a law that established the financial responsibility of drivers for damage or injuries resulting from auto mishaps. That law inspired legislation in other states, and by the mid-1950s, nearly every state had some sort of financial responsibility law on its books.
In 1949, the Allstate Headquarters Building was completed at 3246 W. Arthington Street in Chicago as a part of the Sears, Roebuck and Company Complex. The midrise building is vacant (as of 2013) and in danger of demolition. The building is noted for its early postwar midrise construction. This location was vacated when the company relocated in the postwar years.
The company's "You're in Good Hands with Allstate" slogan, which featured a cradling hands, was created in 1950 by Allstate's general sales manager Davis W. Ellis. At the end of the decade, it was used in the company's first network-television advertising campaign, which featured actor Ed Reimers.
Allstate added products throughout the 1950s, including fire insurance in 1954 and homeowners and life insurance in 1957. Allstate began selling insurance to Canadians in 1953. Allstate Insurance Company of Canada was incorporated in 1964.
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In 1952 and 1953, Sears also sold an automobile called Allstate. This was the second time that the company ventured into automobiles, the first being early in the 20th century. This particular car was a flop; it was pulled from stores by 1953. The automobile was based on the Henry J car manufactured by Kaiser Motors. The Allstate brand was eventually limited to insurance, tires, and car batteries by the late 1960s, before becoming insurance only in the mid-1970s.
In 1967, the company's home office was moved from Skokie to Northbrook, Illinois. Allstate continued to sell additional types of insurance to customers throughout the decade, including worker's-compensation insurance in 1964, surety bonds in 1966, inland-marine coverage in 1967, and a business package policy in 1969.
The brand itself expanded in the 1950s and 1960s and could be found on a variety of products such as fire extinguishers and motor scooters.
In 1991, the company went public. In June 1993, 19.8% of Allstate became public through a stock offering. Allstate became completely independent in June 1995, when Sears spun off the remaining 80% stake in the company, distributing 350.5 million shares of Allstate stock to its stockholders. At the time, it was the largest IPO to date.
In 1999, Allstate purchased the personal-lines division of CNA Financial and subsequently renamed it to Encompass Insurance Company.
In 2003, actor Dennis Haysbert became Allstate's spokesman, using the tagline "That’s Allstate’s stand."
In May 2011, Allstate announced that it was purchasing Esurance and rate-comparison site Answer Financial for about $1 billion.
In 2012, Allstate Solutions Private Limited (also called Allstate India) was inaugurated in Bangalore; it is a technology and operations center to provide software development and business process outsourcing services to its US parent.
In January 2017, Allstate acquired SquareTrade, a consumer electronics and appliance protection plan provider. The acquisition cost a reported $1.4 billion from a group of shareholders.
In July 2020, Allstate announced it was acquiring National General for $4 billion. The deal closed in January 2021.
In 2021 Allstate completed sale of its life insurance and annuity businesses. One of the divested businesses was Allstate Life Insurance Company of New York, which became part of Wilton Reassurance Life Company of New York. Another was the similarly named Allstate Life Insurance Company, purchased by Everlake Holdings and renamed Everlake Life Insurance Company. A third divested business was Allstate Assurance Co, also purchased by Everlake Holdings.
In 2025, Chief Information Officer Zulfi Jeevanjee spoke about Allstate's use of AI to generate emails to customers that would sound less confusing and more understanding: "When these emails used to go out, even though we had standards and so on, they would include a lot of insurance jargon. They weren’t very empathetic…Claims agents would get frustrated, and so it wasn’t necessarily great communication." He added, "The claim agent still looks at them just to make sure they’re accurate, but they’re not writing them anymore." After Futurism reported on this, a spokesperson from Allstate's media relations team contacted them demanding that they take down the blog post in question.
From Wikipedia’s article on Allstate, shared under CC BY-SA 4.0.8