5 Questions for Thomas Wilson
By Sandra Block, USA TODAY
February 1, 2010

Thomas Wilson, 52, is the chairman, president and chief executive officer of Allstate and Allstate Insurance. He joined Allstate in 1995 from Sears Roebuck, where he was vice president of strategy and analysis. Prior to Sears, he was managing director of mergers and acquisitions at Dean Witter Reynolds from 1986 to 1993. Wilson is vice chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. A native of St. Clair Shores, Mich., he holds a master's of management degree from Northwestern University's Kellogg School of Management and a bachelor's degree in business administration from the University of Michigan.

Q: A new poll by Allstate and the National Journal found that 55% of Americans believe the country is on the wrong track. Why do you think Americans have such a negative outlook?

A: We're seeing a continuing trend of people feeling like the economy is not working for them. What you see then, is this growing trust deficit. The trust deficit is growing faster than the fiscal deficit.

Americans are saying we don't trust business or government, and they point the finger at both. If you say, "Do you think we've learned our lessons from this economic downturn?" 70% of people say, "No."

Q: As the chief executive of a major publicly held company, what is your responsibility to address the lack of trust in business?
A: Part of it is making sure people's voices are heard. We need to do more things in our business to both inform and educate our customers about the risks they face.
If you ask people who do you trust, three-quarters of them trust themselves the most. That's not a surprise — Americans are pretty individualistic. Then you say, do you know enough about mortgage, credit cards and insurance, and more than half of the people say, "I don't know enough."

Q: Has the recession caused consumers to cut back on auto insurance?
A: People are cutting back. I'm not concerned about it because I think it's in the range of acceptability in terms of what the risks are.
People are raising their deductibles and they're buying less insurance. I think if that's what it takes so you stay insured but you make your budget, that's a good choice. One of the other things we've been doing is try to simplify our products. You can buy standard, gold, platinum, value. We're seeing a lot of people who used to have gold or platinum buying value now.

Q: Some supporters of health care reform argue that mandatory health care insurance is analogous to mandatory auto insurance coverage, which is required by most states. Do you agree?
A: We don't really have a strong view on what should happen or shouldn't happen.

I think there are some differences between health insurance and auto insurance. (The reason for mandatory) auto insurance is that I can directly hurt you because of what I do. The linkage on health insurance is a little less direct. I'm hurting you because I'm not taking care of myself, therefore, overall health care costs will go up. I don't think it's as clean a shot as auto insurance. If you ask consumers, they want to be able to choose. Consumers do not like to be told what to do.

Q: The earthquake that devastated Haiti last month was the worst in 200 years. Is there any way to prepare for something like that?
A: We're quick to forget people knew that could happen, and people didn't build houses they should have built.
I think it should be a learning experience. Let's look at building codes for houses in the earthquake zones on the coast. They're not set up to actually protect people and their houses. In Florida, over a third of the homeowners are insured by a company called Citizens, which is a state company. If a big hurricane comes, Citizens isn't going to have enough money. Everybody knows it; everybody's hoping it doesn't happen; and when it does happen … you're going to have all this economic turmoil. You see this time and time again, and we never really learn our lessons.