WAKE UP DOI!! FACT Farmers helped Ray become agent of the year by giving his clients lower rates. FACT Farmers management new Ray had a partner and touted her a genius. Ray was used by Farmers to use his name and never once asked him for his partners insurance license? Ray was inexperienced, what was management\’s excuse (guilty). Farmers arrogant management was fully aware and should be heled accountable, commissioner where are you?
We all know every company in every industry has problems. Look at Marsh, AIG, State Farm, Allstate, etc. You can find problems with all of these companies. Those that are bashing Farmers are just taking this opportunity for a cheap shot at Farmers because Farmers just happens to be the subject of attention now. I would bet that most of these people are former Farmers employees or agents that could not make a success of themselves and want to blame Farmers. The opportunity to do well at Farmers in an honest and ethical manner is their for any agent that wants it–they just have to take responsibility for their own success and stop blaming others for their failures.
John, what makes you think that all the agents that leave Farmers are not successful? Some successful agent leave because they don\’t like the way they and their clients are being treated by the company. Rates, ez-pay, customer service, claims (for a 3 year period all property claims were left open)… there was just not a lot positive to say about Farmers. As Marty said \”the Cheese has moved\”, and some of us left with it.
John, absolutely their are good honest agents at Farmers, but the truth is, Farmers has allowed the most corrupt to thrive in their organization. Does this happen elseware? Of course it does! Nevertheless, it is abvious to the industry that corruption rampant at Farmers. You can try to polish things up and try to make Farmers look pretty, but the fact is, it is not pretty. As an ex-Farmers, I have thrived in the independent world, with revenues 3 fold of what I was making with Farmers in half the time. Farmers once a great organization, was obviously mismanaged by the previous CEO. Corruption was the rule at Farmers, the more corrupt you are, the more you were held out to be a hero. This is what happened with Wersching and his team. Farmers looks at numbers, but does not look at quality control one iota. This is the very reason that Farmers had to come out with a new auto products, because their existing auto product pool was so tampered with and abused that they were not competitive anymore. John, I did take responsiblity for my success, that is why I got the hell out of that organization. Intead of trying to insult people who made sound business decisions, I challenge you to debate the real issues about Farmers as well as pay a visit to my very successful independent agency. I doubt you will take up the offer, since it much easier for you to make sweeping generalizations.
The truth, is absolute correct. I too was a farmers agent for about 6 years. I got to the point where I was embarrassed to even say I was a farmers agent. I never been so ashamed of represented a carrier as I have with farmers. I can’t tell you how upset clients would get with mentioning farmers. Farmers have been and will be the bad boys for many years to come. This will never change until they improve the treatment of new agents and clients. I gave these poor sons of b*%#@es and education with insurance.
The only thing I was tout is to beware of farmers fear management system sell life or else. I have never seen so many managers with egos’ in one place, as I have seen at their RO. I was number 4 in over all production in that district, out of approximately 35 agents. I think only about 10 are still there, god help them. The company has horrible training, O’ my god the district managers had and ecgo the size of California. I to represent some out siding carriers, Hartford, Safeco, Allied, CBIC, St.Paul/Travelers, OMI, and many more. I have grow a book of business three to four times that of farmers book in ½ the time. Farmers is and always will be trouble
I will just stay with the facts, ethics, and a little econ 101, STAY WITH ME. Insurance is the finacial reimbursement for a loss, and gambling is finacial reimbursement for a win (econ 101). About 10 years ago Farmers started to stack the deck (in gamblers terms). At that time they had high paid pit bosses (district managers)management was sure they were overpaid and started dismantling the foundation of thier agnecy force (dealers). This helped them to control the game better and start stacking the deck. In order, to achieve complete uncontested success they needed to replace all high paid adjusters, so they could tell their patrons that they really did not win any money (payment for losses)or intimidated them into not taking full payment. This was working quite well until mangement got greedy one too many times, and someone blew the whistle, but noone cared at first. HA HA they could do whatever management wanted to. That power created an arrogance with mangement that they actually believed they were right. The problem is as the complaints mounted with customers,employees, and agents. NOW NOONE TRUSTS THEM. The main casino started to change the name of there casinos to get more suckers (policyholders). This worked for a while until someone recognized a different name, and they still would not play honestly. That takes us to thousands of complaints, a CEO who left the building,and inexperienced low paid magement. Too bad if they were a casino they would be shut down and require new management. The only question at this point is Zurich the problem of solution? The final lesson here is ethics, it took 10 years to hit bottom, how many years until they earn anyones trust. A once premier company has a LONG WAY TO THE TOP, unfortunately current mangement does not even know what their product is. Ok I will tell them, TRUST AND A PROMISE TO PAY.
I wondered the same thing. I asked a Farmers district manager [neighbor of mine] how this could happen. He told me that this agency would go sell a really big account say $10M, then go back to Farmers and say \”we are close on getting this account, can the underwriters sharpen their pencils\”. The company would come down a hundred grand, maybe more. The agency would then deposit the client check for the larger amount and send Farmers a check for the lower amount. This doesn\’t make complete sense to me because the client would then get a policy with the lower premium amount written on it and let\’s face it, a hundred grand or more is going to be noticed by the purchaser of the policy. Anyway, this district manager told me this is what happened, and that a lot of heads rolled at Farmers for this. The agents district manager, his boss and a few others. I was also told all these terminated folks lost all of their accumulated Farmers \”contract value\”.
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Don\’t worry about it, go play some golf, surf on the beach and love your pets.
But PiBee, if you were an honest FIG agent you probably couldn\’t afford to go to the beach and relax.
WAKE UP DOI!! FACT Farmers helped Ray become agent of the year by giving his clients lower rates. FACT Farmers management new Ray had a partner and touted her a genius. Ray was used by Farmers to use his name and never once asked him for his partners insurance license? Ray was inexperienced, what was management\’s excuse (guilty). Farmers arrogant management was fully aware and should be heled accountable, commissioner where are you?
We all know every company in every industry has problems. Look at Marsh, AIG, State Farm, Allstate, etc. You can find problems with all of these companies. Those that are bashing Farmers are just taking this opportunity for a cheap shot at Farmers because Farmers just happens to be the subject of attention now. I would bet that most of these people are former Farmers employees or agents that could not make a success of themselves and want to blame Farmers. The opportunity to do well at Farmers in an honest and ethical manner is their for any agent that wants it–they just have to take responsibility for their own success and stop blaming others for their failures.
John, what makes you think that all the agents that leave Farmers are not successful? Some successful agent leave because they don\’t like the way they and their clients are being treated by the company. Rates, ez-pay, customer service, claims (for a 3 year period all property claims were left open)… there was just not a lot positive to say about Farmers. As Marty said \”the Cheese has moved\”, and some of us left with it.
John, absolutely their are good honest agents at Farmers, but the truth is, Farmers has allowed the most corrupt to thrive in their organization. Does this happen elseware? Of course it does! Nevertheless, it is abvious to the industry that corruption rampant at Farmers. You can try to polish things up and try to make Farmers look pretty, but the fact is, it is not pretty. As an ex-Farmers, I have thrived in the independent world, with revenues 3 fold of what I was making with Farmers in half the time. Farmers once a great organization, was obviously mismanaged by the previous CEO. Corruption was the rule at Farmers, the more corrupt you are, the more you were held out to be a hero. This is what happened with Wersching and his team. Farmers looks at numbers, but does not look at quality control one iota. This is the very reason that Farmers had to come out with a new auto products, because their existing auto product pool was so tampered with and abused that they were not competitive anymore. John, I did take responsiblity for my success, that is why I got the hell out of that organization. Intead of trying to insult people who made sound business decisions, I challenge you to debate the real issues about Farmers as well as pay a visit to my very successful independent agency. I doubt you will take up the offer, since it much easier for you to make sweeping generalizations.
The truth, is absolute correct. I too was a farmers agent for about 6 years. I got to the point where I was embarrassed to even say I was a farmers agent. I never been so ashamed of represented a carrier as I have with farmers. I can’t tell you how upset clients would get with mentioning farmers. Farmers have been and will be the bad boys for many years to come. This will never change until they improve the treatment of new agents and clients. I gave these poor sons of b*%#@es and education with insurance.
The only thing I was tout is to beware of farmers fear management system sell life or else. I have never seen so many managers with egos’ in one place, as I have seen at their RO. I was number 4 in over all production in that district, out of approximately 35 agents. I think only about 10 are still there, god help them. The company has horrible training, O’ my god the district managers had and ecgo the size of California. I to represent some out siding carriers, Hartford, Safeco, Allied, CBIC, St.Paul/Travelers, OMI, and many more. I have grow a book of business three to four times that of farmers book in ½ the time. Farmers is and always will be trouble
I will just stay with the facts, ethics, and a little econ 101, STAY WITH ME. Insurance is the finacial reimbursement for a loss, and gambling is finacial reimbursement for a win (econ 101). About 10 years ago Farmers started to stack the deck (in gamblers terms). At that time they had high paid pit bosses (district managers)management was sure they were overpaid and started dismantling the foundation of thier agnecy force (dealers). This helped them to control the game better and start stacking the deck. In order, to achieve complete uncontested success they needed to replace all high paid adjusters, so they could tell their patrons that they really did not win any money (payment for losses)or intimidated them into not taking full payment. This was working quite well until mangement got greedy one too many times, and someone blew the whistle, but noone cared at first. HA HA they could do whatever management wanted to. That power created an arrogance with mangement that they actually believed they were right. The problem is as the complaints mounted with customers,employees, and agents. NOW NOONE TRUSTS THEM. The main casino started to change the name of there casinos to get more suckers (policyholders). This worked for a while until someone recognized a different name, and they still would not play honestly. That takes us to thousands of complaints, a CEO who left the building,and inexperienced low paid magement. Too bad if they were a casino they would be shut down and require new management. The only question at this point is Zurich the problem of solution? The final lesson here is ethics, it took 10 years to hit bottom, how many years until they earn anyones trust. A once premier company has a LONG WAY TO THE TOP, unfortunately current mangement does not even know what their product is. Ok I will tell them, TRUST AND A PROMISE TO PAY.
$8,000,000? That is a lot of money.
We read on these pages about agents getting caught for a few hundred grand, sometimes even less. I can\’t remember one over $2million.
But $8 million dollars in stolen premiums? How did this get to such a level?
Amazing. To paraphrase Ricky Ricardo, somebody got some \’splaining to do at FIG about how they let the situation get this bad.
I wondered the same thing. I asked a Farmers district manager [neighbor of mine] how this could happen. He told me that this agency would go sell a really big account say $10M, then go back to Farmers and say \”we are close on getting this account, can the underwriters sharpen their pencils\”. The company would come down a hundred grand, maybe more. The agency would then deposit the client check for the larger amount and send Farmers a check for the lower amount. This doesn\’t make complete sense to me because the client would then get a policy with the lower premium amount written on it and let\’s face it, a hundred grand or more is going to be noticed by the purchaser of the policy. Anyway, this district manager told me this is what happened, and that a lot of heads rolled at Farmers for this. The agents district manager, his boss and a few others. I was also told all these terminated folks lost all of their accumulated Farmers \”contract value\”.