Farmers Insurance

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michga11
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by michga11 »

FFA wrote:DAD!!! How you been? Heck with my sisters hubby, how about me?
back off! that's MY daddy! i duel you for he.
FFA
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by FFA »

How you been sis? Been what 45 years or so?
michga11
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by michga11 »

i think i must have meant granddaddy. back off my grandpappi!
sacman
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by sacman »

I honeslty believe their is a valid reason why this topic wont die..It's because Farmers continues its practice of misleading reserve agents, terminating tenured agents that have decided to "ride their success" and the ever increasing lawsuits against those that do leave.

I was 17 years with FIG before leaving and becoming the anti-christ. The viscousness shown me by the state office, DM, and the newbie agents that inherited my policies was disturbing to say the least and has forever tainted my tenure with the company. BTW- I TRULY enjoyed my tenure with them and still talk to many of the agents and consider them friends.

Their recruiting office advertises constantly on tv and radio about "owning your own business" while at the same time the state office terminated 5 agents in my area. All over age 50, 20+ years of service, stable-profitable agencies, good retention BUT little life insurance production and, due to rates, limited new business production.
I ask - how can you "own your own business" when someone can shut you down with 90 days of notice without cause?

As they mislead new agents into how much, and how quickly, they can earn, terminated dedicated loyal agents, and sue those that leave and go IA- it naturally will result in bad blood and those affected will want to warn others.

MRDDD - congrats on a long and prosperous carrier. You are truly generous in your offer to your son-in-law. I had hoped to make the same arrangement with my children one day but neither are interested in the insurance business. We'll see what happents after they marry and I have in laws.
There are many, many agents across that country that have made a nice career with Farmers. Until just a few short years ago I never thought I would leave. However, I believe that even somebody in your situation would have to admit that this is not the same management philosophy and agent friendly environment that it was even 10 years ago.

I wish you all continued success.

sacman
FFA
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by FFA »

Saccman, I think you are correct with your assumptions. Its not new news anymore that this is going on and I fully agree with you that the though process on existing long term agents has changed. Its all about reduction of distribution cost. This is the reality of the Farmers World. Go your own way and get sued.

Not sure what the last post regarding Farmers New World Life was about. History lesson??

ED3771316, you started this whole thing, are you still out there?
kevinraz
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by kevinraz »

Allstate has screwed their agents so many times it's hard to count. State Farm is also not noted for being kind to their captives. Federated is brutal to work for as well, have to sell the auto dealer or oil jobber P&C plus life plus investments and if you don't they rake you over the coals.

So why so much hate over Farmers? Allstate pushed their agents from employees to contractors back in the 90's but I don't see 15 years of bile on the IJ website.

All of you who keep holding a grudge need to grow up & move on. I'll bet the reason that many (not all but many) of you failed with Farmers was that you either were not good enough or did not work hard enough. I admit that once the obstacles with Farmers grew difficult I gave up and moved to the IA side. If I could have kept pushing for another 2-3 years I think I could have made it for a long time with them.

And the IA side was not perfect either. The bank agency I worked at promised the world and delivered little. That lasted 8 months. Cottingham & Butler gave me high blood pressure & stress and they replaced me with 3 people when I left. Had one raise in 3 years at C&B while bringing in over $70k every year in new agency revenue.

Continued in next post.....
Kevin Rasmussen AU, CIC
kevinraz
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by kevinraz »

But I learned valuable lessons from both places and I value the lessons I learned. C&B taught me a lot and trained me well. My diverse insurance experience made Hartford very quick to hire me in 2002. Things went very well with them and if you are looking for a company to work for I highly recommend Hartford. Get this: in 6 years with Hartford I never once had a boss who was a jerk. Never once. Hartford was not perfect but tended to do things right.

I also think Jill Tellez should be the next CEO of HIG, she's awesome.

In 2008 I retired from the industry to go into ministry, now serving at Lakeside Bible Camp near Seattle. With a bit of time adding to my perspective I value the lessons I learned at Farmers, Dubuque Bank & Trust, Cottingham & Butler and Hartford Insurance Group. Made some pretty good coin along the way as well.

Give up the grudges. Learn from your experience, even the difficult & bad ones. When you continue to speak bad about an ex-employer you sound petty & shallow and it reflects poorly on you. If you spout bad stuff about an ex-employer in an interview I'd be very cautious about hiring you knowing that you'll trash my company when you leave.

Sincerely,

Kevin Rasmussen, AU, CIC
Kevin Rasmussen AU, CIC
gregcw
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by gregcw »

Kevin, I appointed with FIG in February 1982, I worked with them through February 1989, when we agreed to disagree and I terminated my appointment. What happened to me was that, in November of 1986, my son was diagnosed with Leukemia. In November of 1987 he was admitted to Doernbecher with pneumonia because the chemo had so depressed his immune system that he couldn’t fight the cold that he had. He died that January 5th. He was 12 years old.

I was out of my office for over three months and all my district mangler did while I was out of the office was call the other agents in my town to find out how I was doing. He never ONCE called my UNLICENSED office staff to find out how he could help them.

There was one agent, Jim, who has recently retired, that came by my office every day to check on what the staff needed, review transactions, and sign new applications when necessary and make sure that everything was running smoothly. When I came back into the office I called the DM, Mike, regularly asking him to come by my office and help me by giving me guidance on issues that were cropping up because I was having trouble coping with grief and focusing on getting back into the work process. He always said that he’d be in on his next day to the coast. There were five other offices in my marketing area and about the time I expected him in I’d call agent Jim, closest me, to find out if he was there and he’d tell me that Mike had just left and was on his way to my office. I’d give him about a half hour and call agent Nancy, whose office was just past mine after he’d left Jim and she’d tell me that he’d just left and that she thought he was coming to see me next. I’d wait another half hour or so before calling agent Bruce who was about a mile past my office to get the same story and I’d finally call agent Wally, whose office was 15 miles away and get the same story. I’d never see the man.

The result was that I dealt with several situations the way that this district mangler told me to over the phone and the way that underwriters told me to and they subsequently decided that I made some mistakes and did not want to agree that I just did what I was told to. One critical point that I want to make is that they asked me to quit. When I asked them how much time they wanted that said that the contract called for 90 days. They allowed me to give them SIX MONTHS!!! Their only concern was that time frame would just take me over the 5th year and dramatically increase my contract value. They breathed a sigh of relief when they found that I'd already passed that goal two years earlier.

Farmers Sales Department; Divisional Agency Managers, Divisional Sales Managers, Regional Agency Mangers and Regional Sales Managers are all ladder climbers and really don't care WHO they use for steps! I guess that I'm not surprised that there is so much, well deserved, anger out here.

I've reviewed my posts on this topic and I really don't think that I've thrown a lot of rocks or slung any real mud. Ive mostly tried to clarify a few things, like their hiring practices on 01/20/09; Contract values on 02/19/09; the FIG/Foremost relationship on 02/23/09; that FIG is a real insurance company 02/23/10; and current management duties 03/03/10. The only real rock I've thrown up to this point was my first comment on District MANGLERS on 02/24/10.

Comparing Farmers to State Farm and Allstate; when I appointed with FIG in 1982 they had five agencies in my marketing area; State Farm had three and Allstate had one captive and three independents. In 1993, I compiled a summary. At that point FIG still had only five agencies; State Farm still had only three and Allstate still had only one captive.

Over that time period Farmers had only one agent retire and still had appointed between 37 and 40 agents, while State Farm still only had three agents although two had retired. They had appointed a fourth agent who failed to make a go of it. Allstate still had only one captive, who replaced one that had retired.

State Farm and Allstate do not universally treat their agents like dirt. FARMERS DOES! I really believe that the situations that I had with FIG are not totally unique to me and that other Farmers agents have similar problems with them. Mine were just more extreme. They continue to throw agents up against the wall like dirt to see how many stick and I don't see this practice changing even under the new guard with Zurich.

A final side comment is that several years before FIG acquired Foremost, my Foremost Rep told me that he'd never appoint another Farmers agent with Foremost because of his experiences with them as agents. When I reminded him of this at a recent CIC institute, he laughingly told me that at least he didn't have to deal with them. They deal with their own District Manglers.
Gregcw
randrew54
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by randrew54 »

It is only a matter of time before Dateline runs a story about the recruiting practices of captive companies. I spoke to an agent the other day who was recruited to leave his salaried job of $60,000 to start a scratch agency. The sales manager told him he would write at least 1 million dollars in DWP within 2 years (personal lines only). What a joke! I don't know how some of these sales managers sleep at night.
d's insurance store
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by d's insurance store »

In this current era of retail insurance vending, pretty much all captives run on the formula of throwing up goals and then using heavy handed tactics to achieve the sales goals regardless of where the marketplace is. The companies are not run with legacy insurance industry managers, but rather, bean counters who have their own goals to achieve stock performance and bonus levels. I was a captive with the crooked A for 16 years, and experienced absolutely no sympathy or understanding when my ex suffered through a bout of cancer, so I understand and can relate to the story posted above from the ex Farmer's agent.

As for exposing the corrupt recruitment practices of captives, I long ago stopped feeling sympathetic about new agents who for whatever their reasons refuse to do their own due dilligance and independently investigate the so called opportunities offered by managers desparate and hungry for bodies to fulfill their agent goals. If a prospective recruit is stupid enough to buy into the hype without investigating the pros and cons of such a major career move, then I've lost the ability to do anything more than just shrug my shoulders and go 'tisk, tisk, tisk'.
FFA
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by FFA »

The story told above is not what I experienced from all three (yes three) of my DMs. They were all there to help. When ever I needed them, they were there. The first one trained me in the business. The second one got me started again after I sputtered. The third wished me well on the way out. I still chat with him from time to time and there seemd to be a mutual respect.

I do appreciate the chance to be all I can be. I was bitter and angry at the end of my Farmers Life, but now appreciate the training and support I received. To all three of you and their staff - Thanks.
GreenPepper
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by GreenPepper »

Not sure what formum this fits in but since Im a former FIG agent tuned IA I'll put it here. Is there a protion going on with Travelers that pays an extra 10% on new biz right now? If so, when did that start? The agent in my company said there wasnt but the other producer at my agency said the agent came to him and said there was.
FFA
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by FFA »

Depends on your sales rep. He / She could have requested it for your agency. Mine ended at the end of last quater. It is a lump sum payment.

But, it is over.
ziiqui
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by ziiqui »

They probably should pay you an extra 10%. I called Traveler's for a quote on my (2) autos and homeowner's policy, and Farmers beat you by $250 yr. Yes I am a 'Long-time' Farmers Agent.
sacman
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Re: Farmers Insurance

Post by sacman »

D's ins store-

Question- how can a prospective agent do due diligence in investigating the opportunity and the pros and cons of making a career move when those agents that come onto chat rooms and offer their warnings are chastised as holding grudges and being petty and shallow?

Kevin - good advice, however,those that are expressing their opinions and stories are NOT in an interview. We are bearing witness to the experiences that we have encountered while at FIG. It is not a gripe session, but a heads up to those considering being a FIG agents. I am not trying to convince anybody to not start with FIG, but to merely make them aware that all is not what the DM promises. Seems like the christian thing to do. As someone in the ministry, I would think that arguement would appeal to you.

However, I do agree that resentment can eat at you and tear you apart. I harbor no resentment, but I'm glad as hell to be gone and in less than 3 years being IA I have rebuilt my agency and I'm about 30% larger than I was after 17 years with FIG.

Ziiqui - As I've stated earlier, there are a lot of top notch, successful Farmers agents across the nation and I wish everybody success in their agency. Only now, FIG is much different and those agents coming on board have a much more difficult row to hoe. DM's are more worried about adding a reserve agent then being truthful in the opportunities and the quality of the prospect or their liklihood of success. BTW- my closing ratio against current Farmers customers over the last 18 months or so has been 100%. I've taken every single Farmers policyholder that I was able to quote, usually saving them about 30%.
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