Allstate Increases Market Test of Green Option

Allstate Insurance announced an eight-state test expansion for Allstate Green, its eco-friendly insurance option that saves customers money and earmarks contributions to local environmental causes. The expansion comes on the heels of promising results from phase one market tests in Colorado and Ohio.

Original markets will continue with testing and be joined by expansion states Washington, Oregon, Louisiana, Minnesota, Michigan, Indiana, Missouri and Kansas. The test is scheduled to conclude at the end of 2008.

Key elements of the Allstate Green test program include:

• Reduction of paper statements with the Allstate® Easy Pay Plan, an electronic payment system that automatically deducts premiums from a checking account;
• Allstate $10 contribution to highly localized environmental conservation or restoration projects identified by environmental co-collaborators The Nature Conservancy, America’s Wetland Foundation or Arbor Day Foundation— at no additional cost to customers;
• Customers save up to five percent on premiums by enrolling in the Allstate® Easy Pay Plan.

Each of the eight new test states has identified projects for Allstate Green funds that address critical area-specific environmental projects. Those projects are:

Missouri - Allstate funds will help restoration activities for the Current River by supporting the purchase of strategic tracts of land within the Current River watershed and reselling them to private landowners who agree to conservation easements for sustainable forestry.

Allstate funds also will support the Mississippi River Floodplain Plan, a group of scientists and land conservationists working to restore and protect one million acres of the river’s floodplain, including priority levee districts in the St. Louis area.

Kansas - Allstate funds will invest in the Cheyenne Bottoms restoration project, an 8,000 acre wetland area in the heart of Kansas that helps prevent flooding, refills water wells and provides perfect resting and nesting areas for migrating birds such as the federally endangered whooping crane.

Allstate funds also will invest in the Flint Hills Initiative, one of few remaining tallgrass prairies in the country. Funds will support prairie restoration practices that create better plant diversity, wildlife shelter and habitat for at-risk species.

Michigan and Indiana - Allstate funds will focus on reforestation strategies designed to minimize and reverse the impact of the Emerald Ash Borer, an exotic Asian beetle responsible for the death of more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone.

Louisiana - Allstate funds will support restoration and recovery activities for Louisiana's wetlands, including vegetative planting, restorative interventions and communitywide cleanups, to help prevent the continued loss of 25 square miles of coastland per year.

Minnesota - Allstate funding will help support seed collection and distribution, burning activities and removal of non-prairie plant life in order to strengthen the vitality of Schaefer Prairie, an area harboring roughly 275 plant species -- 245 of which are native to Minnesota.

Funds also will help preserve and restore The St. Louis River Estuary, a 12,000-acre configuration of high quality coastal wetlands, old growth forests, fisheries, a mid-continent bird fly-way, nesting grounds, streams, baymouth bars and sand dunes.

Oregon - Allstate funds will be invested to strengthen salmon ecosystems including systems in the John Day, Deschutes and Willamette rivers, the Rogue Basin and along the Oregon Coast to stem the loss of other species and increase biodiversity.

Washington - Allstate funds will help restoration activities along the Skagit River, a waterway stretching from the Cascade Mountains to Puget Sound. Wrangel Island snow geese, trumpeter swans, countless migratory shorebirds, bald eagles, Skagit salmon and many other species call this river home.

Allstate funds also will be invested in restoration work critical to the long term health of the Tieton River Canyon, home to a unique mix of basalt cliffs, oak trees, elk, bighorn sheep, rattlesnakes and golden eagles.

Original Allstate Green test markets Colorado and Ohio continue with their contributions to area-specific environmental causes, including:

Colorado - Allstate funds will support repopulation of pine forests stricken by mountain pine beetle infestations. The pine beetle destroyed 500,000 acres of Colorado pine forest in 2007 alone, and is on pace to wipe out the majority of Colorado’s large diameter lodgepole pine forests within the next three to five years.

Ohio – Allstate funds will help repopulate Ohio’s Ash forests stricken by Emerald Ash Borer infestations by replacing Ash trees with a diversity of more borer-resistant tree species to prevent further devastation.