NU Online News Service, Feb. 13, 1:52 p.m.EST

If there wasn't enough tension between Allstate agents and thecompany already, a memo about a glitch in agents' compensation mayhave added some more fuel to the fire.

On Friday, agents were informed through an internalcommunication that there were problems with calculating theirannual bonuses and incorrect information was reported on someagency owners' tax forms.

The company says in a statement that it is re-running the report“with additional checks and balances to ensure accuracy.”

The company says it anticipates agents will have their bonuspayments delayed until Feb. 23, but under contract, Allstate hasuntil March 15 to make the payments.

Maybe more annoying for an agent who has filed his or her taxes,information on Form 1099-MISC reported incorrect income informationrelated to two incentive programs for some agency owners andprocessed income information to the wrong agent identificationnumbers for other agency owners.

Allstate says it will issue corrected forms and pay for anyamended returns upon the agent's request.

“We regret any confusion, inconvenience or anxiety these recentprocess errors may have caused amongst some of our agency owners,”the company says.

The issue affects 4,700 agency owners, the company says, out ofa total of 11,500.

While expressing reluctance to add more fuel to the fire on whatis in some quarters an already contentious relationship betweenagents and the company, Jim Fish, executive director of theNational Association of Professional Allstate Agents, says theassociation does plan to ask whether any agency owner terminationstook place based on inaccurate information aggregated by Allstate'ssystems.

A spokeswoman for Allstate says overall information is correctand that the errors related only to the bonus payments. She addsthat the termination of any agent is a very long and involvedprocess and would not be based solely upon the aggregated data.

This latest development follows a recent survey released by NAPAA earlier this month of 1,800agents finding that the overall satisfaction with the company wasnot very high.

NAPAA says 73 percent of agents who took the survey say theywere “not very” or “not at all” satisfied with their relationshipwith theNorthbrook, Ill.-based insurer.