Allstate Bowl Sponsorships Don't Sit Well With Some Locals

Allstate, the title sponsor of tonight's college football BCS National Championship game at the Superdome featuring LSU-Ohio State, "can't seem to shake" negative sentiment from New Orleans residents, according to Krupa & Mowbray of the New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE. Allstate, the second-largest provider of homeowners insurance in the state of Louisiana, in the spring of '06 drew 1,254 complaints filed with the Louisiana Department of Insurance (LDI) "related to claims from Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, easily topping the 703 complaints made against State Farm, the biggest provider of homeowner insurance" in the state. However, an LDI report released in March '07 showed "no pattern of bad behavior by the company." Allstate "hasn't passed on opportunities to tie its brand to college football," and the company is taking "conspicuous steps possibly intended to soften -- or distract from -- the hometown ill will."  The company, for example, has "intensified charitable work" and "focused its game-related TV and print advertising on lucrative auto insurance products, not the home insurance services for which it is best known." Loyola Univ. communications professor Cathy Rogers said of the company's bowl game sponsorships, "The benefit that (Allstate is) gaining nationwide, in their mind, might outweigh the disadvantage locally of angry Allstate policyholders or former policyholders who feel terribly hurt and angry and upset at their insurance carrier spending all this money on sponsorship." California-based United Policyholders Exec Dir Amy Bach said, "These massive advertising and public relations projects look great, but it's really a kick in the stomach to people who didn't have their houses put back together after Katrina" (New Orleans TIMES-PICAYUNE, 1/6).