• The Wall Street Journal (subscription required), Friday, November 24, 2006 11:15 AM

Using an army of 14,000 sales agents to push an increased number of life policies, annuities and other products, Allstate Corp. wants to be a one-shop stop for middle-income baby boomers' financial planning. At the same time, it risks alienating consumers in catastrophe-prone coastal areas, where the insurer has stopped writing new homeowner policies and has dropped some existing customers altogether.

Allstate has seen new sales of financial-services products by its agents soar from $334 million in 1999 to $2.8 billion in 2005. Allstate President Tom Wilson--who will step into the chief executive's office next year--ran the business from 1999 to 2002, and sees room for growth. To build the business, Allstate is trying to boost the profile and training of its agents. Six years ago, few had licenses to sell securities, which are required for many annuity products. Now nearly half do.

"We don't want to be all things to all people," says current CEO Edward Liddy. It would be a mistake to sell individual stocks or bonds, for example. By contrast, life insurance is an "adjacent product."

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