When his children were young, Nathan Littlejohn was a regional salesman in search of a position that would allow him to spend more time with his family. So when he heard about Allstate’s neighborhood agent program in 1990, he was intrigued.

Over the next several years, he said, he worked round the clock to build his customer base and poured about $40,000 of his own money into his agency, located in Overland Park, Kan. He figured it was a long-term investment.

Using similar logic, Craig Crease was able to justify investing $120,000 in his Kansas City Allstate agency over the course of 14 years. The same went for Ron Harper in Thomson, Ga., who spent about $80,000.

But after building up their agencies for nearly a decade or more, the agents said they were called into meetings in late 1999 by Allstate managers. The agents could keep on selling Allstate policies, they were told, but they would no longer be entitled to health insurance, a retirement account or profit-sharing, and their pension benefits would no longer accrue. Instead, they would become independent contractors.