Car insurer Allstate offering customers 15% discounts during COVID-19 lockdown

Insurance company Allstate is offering its U.S. customers a 15 per cent discount on their bills for April and May as most of the country finds itself in some sort of lockdown due to COVID-19.

The Illinois-based company is calling the initiative the "Shelter-in-Place Payback" and says it is implementing the policy "to help its personal auto insurance customers in these challenging times."

Allstate, Esurance and Encompass customers in the United States can expect a 15 per cent rebate on their bills for April and May.

Canadian customers don't qualify for the program, but the company's Canadian division say they are working on rolling out a similar initiative in the coming days.

"While this particular initiative is for our U.S. based customers, we are working diligently on something similar here in Canada and will be able to provide further details in the next day or two," Allstate Canada's Angie Morris told CBC News in a statement."Given an unprecedented decline in driving, customers will receive a Shelter-in-Place Payback of more than $600 million over the next two months," CEO Tom Wilson said. "This is fair because less driving means fewer accidents."

In addition to the rebate, Allstate says it will now allow its personal car insurance customers to still be covered if they use their vehicles for commercial purposes like trips to "deliver food, medicine and other goods."

The company also says it will provide free identity theft protection to Americans for the rest of the year because so many of them are currently working from home, "which increases our exposure to cybercrime," the company said.

"U.S. residents can get the free identity protection product through Dec. 31, 2020, regardless of whether they are already Allstate customers, by signing up in April or May," the company said.