Peter D. Debreceny

Peter Debreceny is Vice President of the Corporate Relations Department of Allstate Insurance Company (founded in 1931 as part of Sears, Roebuck & Co), [1] responsible for internal and external communications for the Allstate Corporation and its subsidiaries. The company would seem to have a PR problem with http://www.allstateinsurancesucks.com/ (selected by Forbes as one of the best 'Corporate Complaint' Sites) [2] and http://badfaithinsurance.com/ which ranks the company third in the USA in its reluctance to actually pay claims. The company has come in for several criticisms relating to vetting employees (using a Management by Statistics program to grade its employees which is derived from Scientology) and manipulating statistical computer data to "drive down fair claims." [3]

Debreceny is Chair of the Institute for Public Relations and has practiced in New Zealand, Australia and the United States. Prior to Allstate he was Senior Vice President, Corporate and Financial Relations at Edelman Worldwide, who played down the 1989 Exxon Valdez oil spill, said to be one of the biggest environmental disasters. [4] [5] [6]

He began his career as a current affairs journalist in radio and television and has a degree in political science and public administration, and is a two-time Silver Anvil award winner of the Public Relations Society of America. He is also a Vice President of the Arthur W. Page Society [7] and co-chair of the Society's Communications Committee, the Communications Committee of the Insurance Information Institute, the Communications Committee of the Executives' Club of Chicago, and serves on the Boards of the Boys and Girls Clubs of Chicago, the Metropolitan Planning Council of Chicago and the Kellstadt Center for Professional Development at DePaul University. [8]

He is also part of the Global Alliance for Public Relations and Communication Management [9]