Forms, Options, and Endorsments

[ehall2]

State Farm is not the company they used to be. In the past the State Farm agent was well repected in the community, a deacon in the First Baptist Church and they wrote 100/300 liability limits. The State Farm Agents today are unethical and will tell anyone anything to make a sale. Now a State Farm agent will fight you over a minimum liability only policy. I met a former State Farm agent a few years ago who was with them 17 years and I mentioned this to him. He said the reason for this is that the agents are starving today. His father was a state farm agent in his town for 30 years and was grossing $600,000 per year in commissions but State Farm since then has told agents that will never happen again. As soon as an agent gets successful they put another agent across the street. The former agent also said their commissions had been cut and they only way they could survive was by qualifying for a quarterly bonus based on number of policies sold. This is why they will fight you for a minimum liability policy. State Farm has been pushing their agents to hire an agent to market their banking products. The former agent said he would have to pay an agent to do this approximately $30,000 per year and if the agent did an exceptionally good job selling bank products he would produce about $6,000 in commission.

 

[Allen Trent]

State Farm is not the company they used to be. In the past the State Farm agent was well repected in the community, a deacon in the First Baptist Church and they wrote 100/300 liability limits. The State Farm Agents today are unethical and will tell anyone anything to make a sale. Now a State Farm agent will fight you over a minimum liability only policy. I met a former State Farm agent a few years ago who was with them 17 years and I mentioned this to him. He said the reason for this is that the agents are starving today. His father was a state farm agent in his town for 30 years and was grossing $600,000 per year in commissions but State Farm since then has told agents that will never happen again. As soon as an agent gets successful they put another agent across the street. The former agent also said their commissions had been cut and they only way they could survive was by qualifying for a quarterly bonus based on number of policies sold. This is why they will fight you for a minimum liability policy. State Farm has been pushing their agents to hire an agent to market their banking products. The former agent said he would have to pay an agent to do this approximately $30,000 per year and if the agent did an exceptionally good job selling bank products he would produce about $6,000 in commission.

Fair enough, but the same will be said by agents at Allstate, Farmers, AAA, Far Bureaus & even from many of the employees in the large independent agencies. As costs have skyrocketed & returns dropped, the carriers & even aency principals have had to get more lean, resulting in many of us saying it isn't like it used to be. I don't think it is any worse at State Farm than the other companies I named. Big difference is with 17% market share they are a bigger target of complaints I think

 

[ehall2]

What does having 17% of the marked share have to do with anything? Also, their market share is going backwards. A few years ago State Farm was advertising that they had discounts up to 45%. This was because they were losing market share and had to do something to stop the bleeding.