Allstate's wokeness under fire after CEO uses New Orleans massacre to lecture Americans about 'divisiveness'



The College Football Playoff quarterfinal at the Sugar Bowl was originally scheduled to take place in New Orleans on New Year's Day; however, the city was rocked in the early hours by an apparent Islamic terrorist attack.

Now-deceased terror suspect, Shamsud-Din Jabbar, allegedly drove a rented truck through a crowd of people on Bourbon Street, claiming the lives of at least 15 victims. Police were ultimately able to neutralize the driver, who was reportedly found with a "remote detonator" for explosives discovered in the French Quarter.

The Sugar Bowl was finally held on Thursday and attended by roughly 57,000 defiant football fans. While the day's big winners were the American spirit, which jihadists have repeatedly proven unable to dampen, and the Notre Dame Fighting Irish, who crushed the Georgia Bulldogs with the help of a 98-yard kick return, the big loser appears to have been the game's title sponsor, Allstate.

During the game, Allstate ran a promotional video wherein the company's president and CEO Tom Wilson used the New Orleans massacre as an opportunity to lecture Americans — including those who just lost loved ones as the result of an imported ideology — about "divisiveness." The video, which was swiftly met with widespread contempt and ridicule, prompted some critics to take a closer look at the kind of corporate culture that would have informed the decision to make such a statement at such a time.

"Welcome to the Allstate Sugar Bowl. Wednesday, tragedy struck the New Orleans community. Our prayers are with the victims and the families," said Wilson. "We also need to be stronger together by overcoming an addiction to divisiveness and negativity."

Wilson invited football fans to help his company "amplify the positive, increase trust, and accept people's imperfections and differences. Together, we win."

'To normal people this sounds like Allstate giving cover to an ISIS terrorist.'

BlazeTV host Steve Deace tweeted, "Still can't believe a venerable American company like Allstate sent its CEO on national television to lecture victims of terrorism about divisiveness. It's like a @TheBabylonBee parody of woke corporatism comes to life."

Republican Texas Gov. Greg Abbott wrote, "This is crazy by Allstate. Maybe — and hear me out here — we should all agree that terrorism will not be tolerated in the United States."

"Wtf is wrong with this guy," wrote Elon Musk.

Sean Davis, co-founder of the Federalist, noted, "Time to cancel Allstate. Do you really want an insurance company that talks about murder and terrorism this way?"

Numerous commentators online shared a 2016 tweet from the late comedian Norm Macdonald where he wrote, "What terrifies me is if ISIS were to detonate a nuclear device and kill 50 million Americans. Imagine the backlash against peaceful Muslims?"

Robby Starbuck, a normalcy advocate who has campaigned against the corporate embrace of DEI, wrote, "Only major companies somehow get this out of touch with society. To normal people this sounds like Allstate giving cover to an ISIS terrorist as if he wouldn't have killed those people if we all accepted his backwards ideology. This is the definition of suicidal empathy."

Libs of TikTok and other critics highlighted the company's woke policies in an apparent effort to figure out whether Wilson's statement was an aberration or par for the course, demonstrating it to have clearly been the latter.

The company notes on its website that DEI "is a core value at Allstate."

Wilson is a signatory of the CEO Action for Diversity and Inclusion pledge — the aim of which is to "rally the business community to advance diversity & inclusion within the workplace by working collectively across organizations and sectors." Extra to maximizing "diversity," Wilson and other signatories pledged to "address honestly and head-on the concerns and needs of our diverse employees and increase equity for all, including Blacks, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, LGBTQ, disabled, veterans and women."

In its 2023 annual report, Allstate boasted about employing fewer white men on its management team, stating, "Inclusive Diversity and Equity is core to success and while more progress is needed, Allstate continues to lead. In the U.S., 56% of the management team and 48% of the company's officers identify as female or BIPOC, both of which increased from the prior year."

Allstate's racial obsession is manifest also in its voting roadmap concerning directors, where the presence of white men is the measure against which progress is apparently marked. Under the section in the annual report on board governance, Allstate notes, "Diversity, including race, gender, ethnicity and culture, are also important factors in consideration of Board composition."

The company has also secured a perfect score in recent years with the radical LGBT activist group Human Rights Campaign, in part by providing multiple LGBT training elements, including an "intersectionality training"; providing sex-change guidelines and at least one inclusion policy for cross-dressing employees; having either an LGBT employee resource group or non-straight diversity council; and engaging in LGBT activism.

Facing incredible backlash, the company told Fox News Digital, "To be clear, Allstate CEO Tom Wilson unequivocally condemns this heinous act of terrorism and violence in all forms. We stand with the families of the victims, their loved ones and the community of New Orleans. The reference to overcoming divisiveness and negativity reflects a broader commitment to fostering trust and positivity in communities across the nation."

Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

State Farm drops 72,000 policies in California over inflation, other issues — state official calls move a 'real crisis'



State Farm announced Wednesday that it plans to drop 72,000 insurance policies in California, citing inflation and several other issues.

According to a recent State Farm press release, the insurance company will either withdraw or not renew tens of thousands of policies "on a rolling basis over the next year, beginning on July 3, 2024." The decision will impact homeowners, business owners, commercial apartments, and residential community associations.

The insurance company stated that it is "working to ensure its long-term sustainability in California," noting that the non-renewals and withdrawals "represent just over 2% of State Farm General's policy count" in the state.

"This decision was not made lightly and only after careful analysis of State Farm General's financial health, which continues to be impacted by inflation, catastrophe exposure, reinsurance costs, and the limitations of working within decades-old insurance regulations," State Farm's press release read.

The company said, "It is necessary to take these actions now."

California Insurance Commissioner Ricardo Lara responded Friday to State Farm's recent announcement.

"This is a real crisis," Lara told KABC's Eyewitness News. He stated that he would like to review the company's finances.

"Insurance companies are not like utility companies," he explained. "By law, they don't have to be here, and when we try to overregulate, we'll see what happened after the Northridge earthquake, when the legislature came in and tried to overregulate, and they no longer write earthquake insurance in California."

According to Lara, the current model insurance companies use to assess risk is "a black box."

"We're going to change that to be much more transparent," he declared. "We bring the risk down in these communities, we keep insurers writing, then you get more insurers writing, you bring down the cost."

Individuals whose policies are impacted by State Farm's latest announcement are encouraged to notify the California Department of Insurance.

"We will make sure we have an insurance expert with you so that we help you transition and connect you with insurance companies who are writing policies in California," Lara added.

Carmen Balber, with Consumer Watchdog, told KABC that the insurance provider's decision to cancel tens of thousands of policies demonstrates that Lara's "plan is not working."

"We have been urging for years now that California require insurance companies who want to sell home or auto insurance in California, sell to everyone who does the right thing and it protects their homes. We urge the insurance commissioner to support that policy change, which needs to go through the legislature," Balber stated.

In 2022, Allstate stopped providing home insurance policies to new California customers, citing increased wildfire risks and an uptick in construction costs, the Associated Press reported.

"The cost to insure new home customers in California is far higher than the price they would pay for policies due to wildfires, higher costs for repairing homes and higher reinsurance premium," Allstate stated at the time.


Like Blaze News? Bypass the censors, sign up for our newsletters, and get stories like this direct to your inbox. Sign up here!

Bad Governance, Not Climate Change, Jeopardizes California Home Insurance

Insurers are fleeing California, where myriad public policies are making it impossible to operate in the fire-prone state.