NEW YORK (Standard & Poor's) Feb. 15, 2002--Standard & Poor's today assigned its single-'A'-plus rating to Allstate Corp.'s (Allstate) $350 million 6.125% senior notes due Feb. 15, 2012. Allstate intends to use the net proceeds from its recent offering for general corporate purposes. After the transaction, Allstate's financial leverage (i.e., debt plus preferred as a percentage of capitalization) is expected to be about 22.4%, which is below the rating level's 25% maximum. Although there will be a slight increase in interest expense, Standard & Poor's expects Allstate's fixed-charge coverage to improve from last year's 7.6 times (x). The increase is expected to come from an increase in aggregate earnings resulting from underwriting and rating actions taken in the company's property/casualty
