Lacher, who led all of Allstate's property and casualty offerings as president of Allstate Protection, no longer appears on a list of executives on Allstate's website.

Lacher was hired by Allstate in late November 2009 from Travelers, where he served as CEO of personal insurance and executive vice president at Travelers. He succeeded George Ruebenson, who was with Allstate for about 40 years.

Last month at an investor conference Lacher outlined a business plan to grow Allstate's P&C segments with a new distribution model. The National Association of Professional Allstate Agents did not look upon the plan favorably.

Lacher told investors Allstate will be increasing homeowners' rates and tightening underwriting standards in an effort to achieve a combine ratio in the low 60s, excluding catastrophes, by 2013.

Today in Florida Allstate subsidiaries Castle Key Indemnity and Castle Key Insurance meet with regulators to defend a rate filing to increase homeowners' rates by an average of 36 percent and 31 percent, respectively.

In auto, Lacher said Allstate is primarily concentrating on New York and Florida, which account for 20 percent of the carrier's business.

Allstate says it has entered into an agreement to buy online auto insurer Esurance and independent insurance agency Answer Financial from White Mountains Insurance Group Ltd. for about $1 billion. The transaction is supposed to close this fall.