For the first time, Progressive has overtaken Allstate in its home state—at least by one key measure.
The suburban Cleveland-based auto insurer now insures more vehicles in Illinois than Northbrook-based Allstate, according to filings with the state Department of Insurance.
And Progressive isn’t taking its foot off the gas. The company has just cut rates for drivers in Illinois by an average of about 3 percent, according to a filing. Progressive raised prices in Illinois modestly in the fall after a cut approaching 10 percent in the early summer months.
This most recent reduction, which took effect Feb. 19 for existing policyholders, largely restores the level of reduction Progressive provided last summer in the early months of the pandemic when far less traffic on the roads meant far less insurer spending to cover accident-related claims.
Progressive’s three insurance units doing business in Illinois together had more than 407,000 policies as of late January, according to the filing. That was an 8 percent increase from nearly 376,000 just in the past seven months.
Allstate, which is beginning to cut prices as it seeks to grow market share nationally for the first time in years, had more than 397,000 Illinois auto policies as of early January, according to Insurance Department filings. It just reduced rates for Illinois drivers by 5 percent on average.
Allstate has been the second-largest car insurer in Illinois for decades, trailing only home-state rival State Farm, based in Bloomington. Progressive has been growing far faster than either of those two giants.
An Allstate spokesman didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The usual measure cited to track market share in the insurance industry is premiums collected. By that standard, Allstate still leads Progressive, simply because its car insurance policies are more expensive on average.
Over the past year, Allstate has seen its auto policies nationally decline slightly. CEO Tom Wilson, who launched what he called a transformative growth strategy in late 2019, attributed the stagnant results to overhauling how Allstate pays its nationwide army of agents and also to a deep cost-cutting program that resulted in nearly 4,000 lost jobs last year.
He’s said growth will resume in 2021. But, to do that, Allstate will have to win during a period of intense price competition as Progressive, State Farm and Chevy Chase, Md.-based Geico jostle over how best to take advantage of claims payouts that continue to be lower than they were before COVID.
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