On Jan. 29, 2009, Standard&Poor's Ratings Services lowered its counterparty credit and financial strength ratings on Allstate Corp.'s (NYSE:ALL) core property-liability (Allstate Protection) and life insurance (Allstate Financial) companies to 'AA-' from 'AA'. At the same time, Standard&Poor's lowered its counterparty credit rating on Allstate to 'A-/A-2' from 'A+/A-1'. The outlook on all these companies is negative. These rating actions reflect the significant deterioration in the operating companies' capital adequacy to the high end of the adequate range from strong. Capital adequacy and surplus at Allstate Protection is noticeably lower than in the quarter ended Sept. 30, 2008, and is now inconsistent with what we had expected for the previous rating. The two-notch downgrade of the
