Allstate Hires New President of Encompass

NU Online News Service, Aug. 25, 2:20 p.m. EST

Allstate Insurance Co. has hired Thomas V. Ealy president of its Encompass Insurance subsidiary.

Ealy was national partner of the Midwest Region for Willis Group Holding's North America retail operations.

Ealy will report to Donald J. Bailey, executive vice president of emerging businesses. He will start Sept. 12.

“The Encompass business represents a central part of the company's aggressive growth goals,” says Bailey in a statement. “There is a great potential here in Encompass. Tom is the right leader to help us capitalize on that potential and achieve the goals we now have before us.”

Prior to Willis, Ealy worked at broker USI and nearly doubled its Midwest commercial lines, employee benefits and personal lines revenues while improving profitability four-fold, according to Allstate.

At a meeting with investors about three months ago, Joseph Lacher, then-president of Allstate Protection, said Allstate recognizes that it tried to treat Encompass as a direct-writer system and ignored the “unique” environment of the independent agency system. He said the company is repairing that model, but did not provide much in the way of specifics.

Lacher is no longer with Allstate.

Allstate says it has entered into an agreement to buy online auto insurer Esurance and independent insurance agency Answer Financial from White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. for about $1 billion. The transaction is supposed to close this fall.

Ealy replaces Cynthia Young, who decided to leave last week after being with the company for about six years, says Allstate.