Allstate expands Claim Satisfaction Guarantee

January 3rd, 2012

John Egan

Allstate has expanded its car insurance Claim Satisfaction Guarantee to 30 states and the District of Columbia, with more states on tap for the program in 2012.

Allstate introduced the free-of-charge Claim Satisfaction Guarantee in 2011 in Georgia, Indiana, Michigan and Ohio.

“The Claim Satisfaction Guarantee is more than a new feature for eligible standard auto customers,” Mark LaNeve, Allstate’s chief marketing officer, says in a news release. “It’s also an assertion by this organization that we have complete confidence in our claims people, our agency owners and our processes. We are certain that the Allstate team will exceed customer expectations.”

Under the guarantee, if an eligible Allstate customer is not happy — for any reason — with the service he or she received on a paid car insurance claim, Allstate will issue a credit on the customer’s car insurance policy. To get a premium credit, an Allstate customer must complain in writing within 180 days of the incident that triggered the claim.

“If the customer isn’t happy, then we haven’t done our job,” LaNeve says.

In general, the credit will equal the customer’s premiums for six months based on the coverage in place at the time of the policyholder’s loss.

Places where the guarantee now is available are Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, the District of Columbia, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Louisiana, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, Virginia, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.

To learn more about how the guarantee works in your state, visit Allstate’s website.

Some consumer advocates are skeptical of the Allstate guarantee.

For instance, Michigan insurance attorney Steven Gursten says on his blog that limitations on the premium credit “do little to motivate Allstate to improve its claims-handling process. Instead, it provides Allstate immunity for future bad behavior after a claimant has successfully complained.”

As for the 180-day time frame for complaints, Gursten says a bad claim experience may not crop up until after that time frame passes.

Gursten says that overall, the claim guarantee “does not seem like a huge change in (Allstate’s) standard operating procedure of putting profits over people.”

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