ralph, your a funny guy. You say tom’s post is his opinion when it was stated very factually and acurately as I can attest to his information as being right on and accurate. You on the other hand are stating an opinion from “your” own personal experience. American Family would certainly not have the ratings it does have if it were conducting business as poorly as you say they are. Lets not exaggerate your limited experience and broad brush American Family as being what you personally have experienced. You cannot speak for everyone else but a majority of other people in consensus do make up facts so my good sir and your single experience does not so your comments and criticism about what Tom said would be unfair and inaccurrate. Sorry for your animosity towards such a reputable company that is every bit what Tom stated. Have a better day.
Fact 1: AmFam’s business is over 80% P&C. Life and Health are small in proportion.
Fact 2: AmFam’s commercial lines business is actually priced cometitively and has turn itself around and is now very healthy and strong.
Fact 3: AmFam’s leadership is exceptionally strong. We have a new mission and vision which is very customer and claims focused.
Fact 4: AmFam’s catastophe teams are usually the first on site and arrive with a Cat Semi tralier and process claims right on the spot. This actually generates valuable business leads from other folks who impatiently wait to hear from their insurance carrier. They usually come over to us knowing American Family takes care of their customers.
Ralph, I have one more fact for you. Here are real statistics that measure customer satisfaction – done by Viewpoints network http://www.viewpoints.com ….. American family is in the top 10 and moving up!! ….The highest ranking auto insurance companies as of June 2008 included Sentry Insurance (5.00 after 3 reviews); military-oriented USAA Banking and Insurance (4.82 after 171 reviews); Erie Insurance (4.75 after 16 reviews); Wawanesa Insurance (4.43); Amica (4.61); Farm Bureau Insurance (4.38); AAA-Auto Club (4.37); The Hartford (4.28 after 64 reviews); Progressive (4.24 after 294 reviews); American Family Insurance (4.36); State Farm (4.23); and Commerce (4.20). Several others, including Esurance, Travelers, Allstate, Grange Mutual and 21st Century, averaged between 3.80 and 4.20.
I have no animosity towards AmFam. In fact I said I thought they were a good company. Commercially I see them taking risks. My animosity was towards Tom and now you since what he said were opinions not facts. A fact is something like my wife is female. This is true because she is female. Another example is my brother is 42. Again this is a fact because he is 42. However, saying the leadership is strong is an opinion not a fact. Stating they are usually on site first and usually switch to AmFam is again an opinion. Hell, he even used the work usually twice. I think AmFam does a fine job of handling their claims. I even have an AmFam agent I refer people to when she has better rates etc. My animosity is when idiots like you say things that are opinions but say they are facts. AmFam like most companies does a good job most of the time but they like other companies do upset people at times. Trust me, I have met some. Lastly, saying commercial is priced competitive and healthy is still an opinion not a fact. If you said the commercial combined ratio was .98 versus the industry at .99 that would be a fact if true. (i made it up). Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. I recommend you look up the definition of fact in a dictionary. Its sad they let people who can not understand simple things like this into our industry.
Okay Ralph I’ll give you that one – pure facts, like numerical facts, are different than what I would call objective analysis (based upon a series of underlying facts that objectively support the statements being made.
Quite honestly, some facts are quite useless unless they are tied to something of business value.
Interestingly, our new leadershipp is actually aligning our corporate mission, vision and values to the way we do our operations and provide services to our customers. Not rocket science, but this takes a certain kind of leadership to buck the “old boys club” and actually make meaningful change to the benefit of customers, employees and the company.
There are many decisions being made by the new leadership team based upon facts and actual industry metrics, combined ratios, A.M. Best customer satisfaction scores etc.
We are moving to a true “risk pricing model” which will benefit all customers by pricing insurance based upon the “true” factual risk that they represent (in terms of future claims we would expect).
My point is that facts need to be used objectively. When you cross the line into subjective analysis and “feeling” then I would agree with you that those become baseless opinions. I try not to go there.
Ok. That was pretty good. Sorry I called you and idiot etc. In regards to you guys going to “risk model pricing” you are way behind the competition. You guys just recently started credit scoring. One of the reasons I used to refer people to your agent was when I had someone with bad credit but otherwise good info. You guys did not run credit so AmFam was getting advsersely selected in the market for a long time. We can see it in the higher than average loss dollars going out of AmFam. Hopefully (for your sake not mine) the new system will correct this but you are years behind the competition. Our companies have been doing this for a long time and getting more and more sophisticated with it. Good or bad we are writing better risks than you and have been for a long time. I am kind of sad to see you guys go to this because for a long time I have been cherry picking your good clients and let you keep or take new clients with bad credit. Like it or not credit is the biggest factor in determining future loss experience. You guys are changing to this out of necessity. Good luck. By the way, I like AmFam a lot better than Farmers or Allstate. They are the worst two companies out there if you ask me. I used to work for Farmers in claims and would not insure anything with them. Very poorly run companies. If I had a choice with being a direct writer agent I would choose AmFam or State Farm. My problem with them is being subject to the ups and downs with no other options.
You are so right on that one! We were indeed being adversely selected against “for years” because we did not have credit in the pricing. Credit Based Insurance scores are “highly predictive” of future claims experience. We are probably one of the last major insurance companies to go to that model.
For Auto pricing, we are fully implemented with credit in 8 states and will get Wisconsin (a big one for us) by October 1st. Property is all priced with credit now.
Thank-you for your candid comments and observations Ralph!
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ralph, your a funny guy. You say tom’s post is his opinion when it was stated very factually and acurately as I can attest to his information as being right on and accurate. You on the other hand are stating an opinion from “your” own personal experience. American Family would certainly not have the ratings it does have if it were conducting business as poorly as you say they are. Lets not exaggerate your limited experience and broad brush American Family as being what you personally have experienced. You cannot speak for everyone else but a majority of other people in consensus do make up facts so my good sir and your single experience does not so your comments and criticism about what Tom said would be unfair and inaccurrate. Sorry for your animosity towards such a reputable company that is every bit what Tom stated. Have a better day.
A lot of misinformation in the original posting.
Fact 1: AmFam’s business is over 80% P&C. Life and Health are small in proportion.
Fact 2: AmFam’s commercial lines business is actually priced cometitively and has turn itself around and is now very healthy and strong.
Fact 3: AmFam’s leadership is exceptionally strong. We have a new mission and vision which is very customer and claims focused.
Fact 4: AmFam’s catastophe teams are usually the first on site and arrive with a Cat Semi tralier and process claims right on the spot. This actually generates valuable business leads from other folks who impatiently wait to hear from their insurance carrier. They usually come over to us knowing American Family takes care of their customers.
Get the facts right before you post!!!!!
Ralph, I have one more fact for you. Here are real statistics that measure customer satisfaction – done by Viewpoints network http://www.viewpoints.com ….. American family is in the top 10 and moving up!! ….The highest ranking auto insurance companies as of June 2008 included Sentry Insurance (5.00 after 3 reviews); military-oriented USAA Banking and Insurance (4.82 after 171 reviews); Erie Insurance (4.75 after 16 reviews); Wawanesa Insurance (4.43); Amica (4.61); Farm Bureau Insurance (4.38); AAA-Auto Club (4.37); The Hartford (4.28 after 64 reviews); Progressive (4.24 after 294 reviews); American Family Insurance (4.36); State Farm (4.23); and Commerce (4.20). Several others, including Esurance, Travelers, Allstate, Grange Mutual and 21st Century, averaged between 3.80 and 4.20.
I have no animosity towards AmFam. In fact I said I thought they were a good company. Commercially I see them taking risks. My animosity was towards Tom and now you since what he said were opinions not facts. A fact is something like my wife is female. This is true because she is female. Another example is my brother is 42. Again this is a fact because he is 42. However, saying the leadership is strong is an opinion not a fact. Stating they are usually on site first and usually switch to AmFam is again an opinion. Hell, he even used the work usually twice. I think AmFam does a fine job of handling their claims. I even have an AmFam agent I refer people to when she has better rates etc. My animosity is when idiots like you say things that are opinions but say they are facts. AmFam like most companies does a good job most of the time but they like other companies do upset people at times. Trust me, I have met some. Lastly, saying commercial is priced competitive and healthy is still an opinion not a fact. If you said the commercial combined ratio was .98 versus the industry at .99 that would be a fact if true. (i made it up). Facts are facts and opinions are opinions. I recommend you look up the definition of fact in a dictionary. Its sad they let people who can not understand simple things like this into our industry.
Okay Ralph I’ll give you that one – pure facts, like numerical facts, are different than what I would call objective analysis (based upon a series of underlying facts that objectively support the statements being made.
Quite honestly, some facts are quite useless unless they are tied to something of business value.
Interestingly, our new leadershipp is actually aligning our corporate mission, vision and values to the way we do our operations and provide services to our customers. Not rocket science, but this takes a certain kind of leadership to buck the “old boys club” and actually make meaningful change to the benefit of customers, employees and the company.
There are many decisions being made by the new leadership team based upon facts and actual industry metrics, combined ratios, A.M. Best customer satisfaction scores etc.
We are moving to a true “risk pricing model” which will benefit all customers by pricing insurance based upon the “true” factual risk that they represent (in terms of future claims we would expect).
My point is that facts need to be used objectively. When you cross the line into subjective analysis and “feeling” then I would agree with you that those become baseless opinions. I try not to go there.
Tom
Ok. That was pretty good. Sorry I called you and idiot etc. In regards to you guys going to “risk model pricing” you are way behind the competition. You guys just recently started credit scoring. One of the reasons I used to refer people to your agent was when I had someone with bad credit but otherwise good info. You guys did not run credit so AmFam was getting advsersely selected in the market for a long time. We can see it in the higher than average loss dollars going out of AmFam. Hopefully (for your sake not mine) the new system will correct this but you are years behind the competition. Our companies have been doing this for a long time and getting more and more sophisticated with it. Good or bad we are writing better risks than you and have been for a long time. I am kind of sad to see you guys go to this because for a long time I have been cherry picking your good clients and let you keep or take new clients with bad credit. Like it or not credit is the biggest factor in determining future loss experience. You guys are changing to this out of necessity. Good luck. By the way, I like AmFam a lot better than Farmers or Allstate. They are the worst two companies out there if you ask me. I used to work for Farmers in claims and would not insure anything with them. Very poorly run companies. If I had a choice with being a direct writer agent I would choose AmFam or State Farm. My problem with them is being subject to the ups and downs with no other options.
Ralph,
You are so right on that one! We were indeed being adversely selected against “for years” because we did not have credit in the pricing. Credit Based Insurance scores are “highly predictive” of future claims experience. We are probably one of the last major insurance companies to go to that model.
For Auto pricing, we are fully implemented with credit in 8 states and will get Wisconsin (a big one for us) by October 1st. Property is all priced with credit now.
Thank-you for your candid comments and observations Ralph!
Tom