Posted On: December 17, 2004, 10:55 am CST

Posted By: Tom

I have been reading with great interest your coments and am really beginning to understand why Farmers does not have the name it used to have.

You both are missing the most important aspect of your business. The consumer. I posted some of the comments I get from marketing for your agents yesterday, but let me give you a little personal story.

My best friend is a Farmers agent and a client as well. I wanted to give him my auto policies. I sent a copy of my existing policy and he quoted it and for the same coverages he came in $800.00 more per year. $800.00. If you are priced that far out of the market then you really need to be looking at your market.

When I have potential businesses tell me on a regular basis that Farmers came in and bid them last year and couldn't compete, that tells me you really need to be looking at what your doing.

You could have the best agents in the world working well with the best management in the world, but if you don't have a competitive product to work with Why bother? If you don't offer the service that these companies are wanting again Why bother?

You both need to sit down and look at the whole picture. Not just Agents vs. management. You need to look at what can we do to give the consumer what they really need while being competitive.