I’m a former AmFam agent, and am now on the Independent side and making a lot more money, with no pressure to sell LIFE ! I will say I’m a bit tired of going up against AmFam agents selling gas station BOP’s to truck stops, selling roofing contractors as residential remodelers, and selling small manufacturers as retail stores. Sheesh, do they know what in the heck they are doing?
AmFam Group is No. 14 in the U.S. and last year posted an 86% loss ratio and a 110% combined ratio. Nice numbers – and it shows how strong your underwriting is. AND THAT WAS BEFORE THE STORMS.
Go sell life and health, and maybe a little bit of home and auto. But please leave the real insurance to those of us who are committed, professionally, to business insurance.
Hey Stunned,
You bailed too! I did partly due to being uncompetitive and partly due to worrying about e and o due to poor training. Glad I made the move. I wish them no ill and love competing agains them.
AmFam – agents know nothing, but how to sell life insurance. Products are cheap? Why? Because all they do is balance it with life sales. Commercial knowledge is a joke, but you always have life insurance. Oh, and they pay their agents NOTHING. So this won’t hurt AmFam.
What company do you work for or are you ashamed to mention it in print? It’s easy to hide behind a ficticious name and take shots at the number one company in the Midwest. Those 50,000 plus customers are pretty glad they had a company like American Family instead of some fly-by-night Po-Dunk Mutual!
I ECHO THE COMMENTS MADE IN BEHALF OF AMERICAN FAMILY AND WONDER WHERE THE WRITER OF THE GOOD FOR AMFAM COMMENT IS FROM. SOUNDS LIKE A DIGRUNTLED FORMER AGENT WHO COULDN’T SELL LIFE INSURANCE AND NOW IS TRYING TO BELITTLE IT’S VALUE IN RELATION TO P&C CLAIMS. THERE IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN AGENTS FOR AM FAMILY AND THAT FACT MOTHER NATURE HAS CAUSED HAVOK IN THE MIDWEST SO WHAT THE POINT OR ATTEMPTED CORRELATION THERE IS QUITE ABSTRACT. AS MENTIONED GOOD THING THAT THOSE PEOPLE HAVE THE NUMBER ONE COMPANY IN THE NATION IN HOW WELL THEY HANDLE THEIR CLAIMS TO TAKE CARE OF THEM IN THEIR GREAT TIME OF NEED. BY THE WAY LOSS RATIO OVERALL IS NOT GOOD FOR THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE SO GOOD FOR AMFAM NEEDS TO GO EAT HIS/HER SOUR GRAPES UNDER AN APPLE TREE SOMEWHERE ELSE AND SEE IF ONE DROPS ON THEIR HEAD AND GIVES THEM SOME COMMON SENSE. THANK GOODNESS FOR AMERICAN FAMILY’S PRESCENCE IN AN AREA OF SUCH GREAT NEED AND CIRCUMSTANCE. ASK THEIR INSURED’S WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT THEIR COMPANY AND THEY WILL TELL YOU “THEY WERE THERE WHEN I NEEDED THEM”.
I understand some of the comments made about the Amfam agents. As a former one, I was not trained as well as I should have been. The push was for life insurance. In fact, at the time, if you sold life you were golden. That has changed a little. Yes the Amfam agents are highly regarded in WI which is there home state. However in Il, many have left do to rates, commissions, etc. It is still a great company. I am betting they have the homes on Lake Delton insured for which there probably is not coverage for the flood results. I too think the first writer is a bitter former agent. I once was but life is too short!
But to me the message should be a reminder to insurance haters (the attorneys trolling here for potential class action lawsuit action) that some years, maybe most years, P & C insurers take a loss. Even big ones. Even good ones. And if indeed AmFam is NOT focused on providing adequate effort to properly insure people, cars and homes? The market has a reliable, predictable outcome for that oversight. Ah, the free market economy. Thanks goodness!
I am an independent agent but agree that AmFam is not a bad company. I definitely would not say they are number 1 though. I find their customers to have little or no loyalty. State Farm customers are much more loyal than AmFam customers. I still cannot figure out why. Nevertheless, I agree with the prior poster that AmFam agents and the company have no idea what they are doing in commercial insurance. I did not write a manufacturing risk recently that I inspected and quoted with 15 different carriers. Cheapest rate I came up with was $20,000 premium for the P&C not including WorkComp. AmFam currently writes the account for about $2000. They have no idea what they are doing or insuring. If 15 other companies are all $20,000 or higher what does that tell you about AmFam at $2,000? Clueless!!! Most of their agents do not know the first thing about commercial insurance and I see big E&O problems on accounts they write that I look at. I usually walk away unless the customer is serious about having the right coverages. On the personal side they were really dirt-cheap about 6 years ago. They paid out the nose on wind/hail claims and now they are close to the most expensive in the area. Again, these kinds of mistakes speak to poor management of the company. Bottom line, I would much rather an agent write the business than any direct company like GEICO or Progressive. They are trying to make or product a commodity which it most definitely is not.
Facts 1 may be right but 2,3, and 4 are your opinions. I have seen many pissed off customers that got very poor and slow claims service from AmFam. I have never had a customer leave for bad claims service and the percentage that do in the industry is low. Price and service (other than claims) are king and usually the reason. I agree your commercial is competitive but that is opinion as you and I both know there are companies better and worse. You never know if your commercial rates are good until a few years later when claims are paid or not paid. You guys may find in a few years that your rates have been to low and see big increases in premium or you may find it to be very profitable and great for everyone. To say it is good today only means the rates are good today not necessarily profitable. I see AmFam doing dumb things around here commercially speaking. You and I both know most AmFam agents are good at personal lines and are clueless in commercial. Leadership is your opinion for sure and I am an outsider but the rollercoaster your customers are on does not look like good leadership to me. You seem pretty stupid to tell people to get facts straight and then post your opinions instead of actual facts. Duh!!!
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I’m a former AmFam agent, and am now on the Independent side and making a lot more money, with no pressure to sell LIFE ! I will say I’m a bit tired of going up against AmFam agents selling gas station BOP’s to truck stops, selling roofing contractors as residential remodelers, and selling small manufacturers as retail stores. Sheesh, do they know what in the heck they are doing?
AmFam Group is No. 14 in the U.S. and last year posted an 86% loss ratio and a 110% combined ratio. Nice numbers – and it shows how strong your underwriting is. AND THAT WAS BEFORE THE STORMS.
Go sell life and health, and maybe a little bit of home and auto. But please leave the real insurance to those of us who are committed, professionally, to business insurance.
Hey Stunned,
You bailed too! I did partly due to being uncompetitive and partly due to worrying about e and o due to poor training. Glad I made the move. I wish them no ill and love competing agains them.
AmFam – agents know nothing, but how to sell life insurance. Products are cheap? Why? Because all they do is balance it with life sales. Commercial knowledge is a joke, but you always have life insurance. Oh, and they pay their agents NOTHING. So this won’t hurt AmFam.
What company do you work for or are you ashamed to mention it in print? It’s easy to hide behind a ficticious name and take shots at the number one company in the Midwest. Those 50,000 plus customers are pretty glad they had a company like American Family instead of some fly-by-night Po-Dunk Mutual!
I ECHO THE COMMENTS MADE IN BEHALF OF AMERICAN FAMILY AND WONDER WHERE THE WRITER OF THE GOOD FOR AMFAM COMMENT IS FROM. SOUNDS LIKE A DIGRUNTLED FORMER AGENT WHO COULDN’T SELL LIFE INSURANCE AND NOW IS TRYING TO BELITTLE IT’S VALUE IN RELATION TO P&C CLAIMS. THERE IS NO CONNECTION BETWEEN AGENTS FOR AM FAMILY AND THAT FACT MOTHER NATURE HAS CAUSED HAVOK IN THE MIDWEST SO WHAT THE POINT OR ATTEMPTED CORRELATION THERE IS QUITE ABSTRACT. AS MENTIONED GOOD THING THAT THOSE PEOPLE HAVE THE NUMBER ONE COMPANY IN THE NATION IN HOW WELL THEY HANDLE THEIR CLAIMS TO TAKE CARE OF THEM IN THEIR GREAT TIME OF NEED. BY THE WAY LOSS RATIO OVERALL IS NOT GOOD FOR THE INSURANCE INDUSTRY AS A WHOLE SO GOOD FOR AMFAM NEEDS TO GO EAT HIS/HER SOUR GRAPES UNDER AN APPLE TREE SOMEWHERE ELSE AND SEE IF ONE DROPS ON THEIR HEAD AND GIVES THEM SOME COMMON SENSE. THANK GOODNESS FOR AMERICAN FAMILY’S PRESCENCE IN AN AREA OF SUCH GREAT NEED AND CIRCUMSTANCE. ASK THEIR INSURED’S WHAT THEY THINK ABOUT THEIR COMPANY AND THEY WILL TELL YOU “THEY WERE THERE WHEN I NEEDED THEM”.
I am equally perplexed with the relevance of the comments to the content of the article.
AmFam agents are generally pretty well regarded here in WI
I understand some of the comments made about the Amfam agents. As a former one, I was not trained as well as I should have been. The push was for life insurance. In fact, at the time, if you sold life you were golden. That has changed a little. Yes the Amfam agents are highly regarded in WI which is there home state. However in Il, many have left do to rates, commissions, etc. It is still a great company. I am betting they have the homes on Lake Delton insured for which there probably is not coverage for the flood results. I too think the first writer is a bitter former agent. I once was but life is too short!
But to me the message should be a reminder to insurance haters (the attorneys trolling here for potential class action lawsuit action) that some years, maybe most years, P & C insurers take a loss. Even big ones. Even good ones. And if indeed AmFam is NOT focused on providing adequate effort to properly insure people, cars and homes? The market has a reliable, predictable outcome for that oversight. Ah, the free market economy. Thanks goodness!
I am an independent agent but agree that AmFam is not a bad company. I definitely would not say they are number 1 though. I find their customers to have little or no loyalty. State Farm customers are much more loyal than AmFam customers. I still cannot figure out why. Nevertheless, I agree with the prior poster that AmFam agents and the company have no idea what they are doing in commercial insurance. I did not write a manufacturing risk recently that I inspected and quoted with 15 different carriers. Cheapest rate I came up with was $20,000 premium for the P&C not including WorkComp. AmFam currently writes the account for about $2000. They have no idea what they are doing or insuring. If 15 other companies are all $20,000 or higher what does that tell you about AmFam at $2,000? Clueless!!! Most of their agents do not know the first thing about commercial insurance and I see big E&O problems on accounts they write that I look at. I usually walk away unless the customer is serious about having the right coverages. On the personal side they were really dirt-cheap about 6 years ago. They paid out the nose on wind/hail claims and now they are close to the most expensive in the area. Again, these kinds of mistakes speak to poor management of the company. Bottom line, I would much rather an agent write the business than any direct company like GEICO or Progressive. They are trying to make or product a commodity which it most definitely is not.
Facts 1 may be right but 2,3, and 4 are your opinions. I have seen many pissed off customers that got very poor and slow claims service from AmFam. I have never had a customer leave for bad claims service and the percentage that do in the industry is low. Price and service (other than claims) are king and usually the reason. I agree your commercial is competitive but that is opinion as you and I both know there are companies better and worse. You never know if your commercial rates are good until a few years later when claims are paid or not paid. You guys may find in a few years that your rates have been to low and see big increases in premium or you may find it to be very profitable and great for everyone. To say it is good today only means the rates are good today not necessarily profitable. I see AmFam doing dumb things around here commercially speaking. You and I both know most AmFam agents are good at personal lines and are clueless in commercial. Leadership is your opinion for sure and I am an outsider but the rollercoaster your customers are on does not look like good leadership to me. You seem pretty stupid to tell people to get facts straight and then post your opinions instead of actual facts. Duh!!!