Thread regarding State Farm Insurance layoffs

Remember when?

Remember when the company required 24 hour personal contact with all parties involved in a loss? Inventories were 50 files and customer service was a top priority? Now Inventories are 6 times that amount. Even with technology, how can customer service be better than it once was? Is doing more with less people better? My guess is no.

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| 2914 views | | 27 replies (last May 1, 2021) | Reply
Post ID: @OP+1aAQdRk2

27 replies (most recent on top)

Back in the day, if you mopped the floor at Ford or GM, you drove it too. We’re fu---d.

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Post ID: @3hge+1aAQdRk2

@2rsg-your day drinking is not wearing well. LOL.

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Post ID: @3ces+1aAQdRk2

@3let+1aAQdRk2 I think people that think like you should quit because you don’t improve anything at all with that attitude. Your phoniness must shine through I. Your interactions with others such as the customers. You’ll still hang on and work here, but don’t believe in the product at all? Everything is devolving. Employers and employees and customers endlessly facing off for the upper hand. Nobody is satisfied, ever. Nobody remains loyal. Is this just how it is now? I think it sucks.

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Post ID: @3tfw+1aAQdRk2

@2rsg is clearly unbalanced and full of sheet.

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Post ID: @3bdo+1aAQdRk2

When employees working there (me for example) do not carry State Farm for insurance because there’s no way in he-l I’d want to risk having an auto accident with injury handled by the majority of these claim specialists … there’s your problem.

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Post ID: @3let+1aAQdRk2

Simple math 80 billion to 120 billion we ca afford to cut rates

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Post ID: @2cra+1aAQdRk2

If most of you actually understood the financial markets, you’d have much better things to do than spewing your garbage here.

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Post ID: @2hii+1aAQdRk2

Time to cut some expenses ie associates comp need to leverage automation AI moving fast at the farm.

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Post ID: @2mtx+1aAQdRk2

LOL!!! You just blew your own argument..."over weighted in stocks"...hence when the market takes a down turn so does that investment return.. Plus you can't read...I said we/insurance companies are not using bonds.... id--t! LOL! Another drank the koolaid...you are repeating the same lies, logic I've listened to by SF execs to give cover to themselves. The 40 million increase in net worth over the last 5 years is because of all the employees SF has let go and lower salaries (original statement)...and unsustainable stock market returns. So let me give you the bouncy balll...follow along..no bond returns/investment....loossseyy money on each policy...only way to make money is stock market/burn surplus...stock market gooeee downeee...investment returns goeee downeee. Your SF ...you have to generate more premiums to generate larger returns in a down market...your rates go up then people leave and your lapse can goes up.......lower market returns + plus higher premiums= equals less customers and less return over the long run because you can only raise rates so much....as policy counts go down. We have repeated this cycle so many times at SF!!! Thats why we have only grown over a million policies 3 times in the last 25 years!!! Geico and Progressive have averaged over a million new policies a year for over 10 years..... Progressive has averaged almost 2 million new policies the last 5 years! I know you trolls want to be right so bad but you never are!!! Nice try ...but you are wrong! SF will still be number 2 by 22 or we may have extended it to 23 ....oh but the execs will say will still have more customers overall.... Let me make this simple for all the DISD graduates! Stock/mutual it does not matter. When your 2 main competitors are 15-20 cents more profitable on every dollar, than you are before investment, you are going to loose that race. They have good investment people too!!! LOL! No business, regardless of how they are formed, can be successful in a modern economy that prices it's product to loose money! We have a ton of techs now that generate no profit...they will go bust like the last tech collapse...some will be ok because they will become profitable.. That plan does not work for insurance!

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Post ID: @2rsg+1aAQdRk2

Huge growth this year 1 million plus units and counting. Looks like an infection that needs to go. 120 Bill going strong I think we past you on the highway about 25 miles back

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Post ID: @2rvv+1aAQdRk2

I am growing tired of trying to educate an id--t. If you knew ANYTHING about insurance companies investments then you would know SF has less exposure in bonds than GEICO or Progressive. They are over weighted in stocks because they are a MUTUAL company. Your entire argument is sophomoric at best. Thanks for playing;

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Post ID: @2vzs+1aAQdRk2

LOL! Your financial response is mo--nic at best. You know nothing of how the business runs, ....."I read about business theory in a CPCU book but really do not know how it works." haha... If you have been paying attention insurance companies (all) are scared because the oleee bond timing strategies do not work since bond yields/returns do not even keep pace with inflation and basically return zero these days!!! You proved my point SF prices it business at a loss and has to do better in the market than our competitors in a market down turn..... they may still be able to generate a return but not enough to make up the spread or keep competitive/low rates to grow. Geico and Progressive make money before a single dollar is invested unlike SF. Shares holders are happy and a .20 dividend is useless! They do better in downturns and we have to raise rates to generate more premium for more investment return....since we are a mutual company pricing business at a loss! They are able to maintain...and I could care less about stock vs. mutual. The same financial principles apply to lowering rates and growing/adding policies. I laugh at all the SF Execs talking about growth. Geico and Progressive have been growing millions each year for at least the last 15 years. You forget just 2 years ago we lost almost 2 million auto policies...4-5 years ago we lost almost 12 billion dollars because we wrote cr-p business and had it mis-priced. All we have done is win 1 game against teams that have beat us 15 straight... Try again and keep reading your CPCU books....

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Post ID: @2nep+1aAQdRk2

Remember when we had claims and operations associates that didn’t complain cry and look for the lazy way. Time to reinterview and move some out.

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Post ID: @2crh+1aAQdRk2

Right. Compare my response to yours. Who,is the id--t?💀💀💀

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Post ID: @1xhr+1aAQdRk2

Corporate robot comment by : @1xcu+1aAQdRk2. Let me clear some things up for you. You are obviously one of the many worthless management types with no real talent and should be flipping burgers for a living. If the real strength of the company, the workers, want any shi!t outta you we'll squeeze your head.

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Post ID: @1fco+1aAQdRk2

Always remember, from first to worst. All under same leadership from execs to the board. Complete failures. All of the changes have destroyed the company. But why? Total incompetence and white greed.

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Post ID: @1yrc+1aAQdRk2

So you could not be more wrong. You are obviously a low level employee with no understanding of strategic issues. SF does not price their products to make a profit-they actually plan on a loss. Why? Because they are a mutual company and do not have to provide dividends to investors. SF’s owners are customers not investors and keeping rates low even if it produces a higher CR is a way to return Capital to customers. GEICO and Progressive are owned by investors, not customers. Their sole allegiance is to investors. So, taking care of investors is about producing dividends. And again to show your total ignorance, SF investments actually produce above average results during a down stock market. I am not going to explain because it would take too long and you would not grasp it anyway. You might want to go back to school though so you could better understand the business world.

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Post ID: @1xcu+1aAQdRk2

Let me clear some things up about the illusion of growth that we are having. Yes it is record growth, you would have to be stupid to not admit that. The only problem is....it is not real growth. You have to have the numbers and history to understand. A decade ago when this transformation started we had between 80k-90K employees. Today we are sitting at 57.5K. We used to measure things/jobs by customer facing vs. non-customer facing positions. We paid non-customer facing positions less and eliminated as many of those rolls as possible. Zones/OC were cheaper too! Yet our combined ratio was right around 107% and guess what after all these changes and the elimination of almost 30K jobs 10 years later, it is still right around 107%! It reached a high about 4-5 years ago of 122%. With all that said, the claims/policies per employee now is double what it used be! So everyone's work load has at least doubled and in some areas tripled...and all at a lower pay scale or lower job class.....thats what all the endless post on here are about. On top of that we have a ton of areas and employees that did not exist, from Process, ET, Marketing, ESS&P, F&S, Licensing and on and on! Some of these functions were pulled out but most are just more Chiefs and less Indians! The non-customer facing roles have exploded and claims roles eliminated! So back to my original point, the growth is not real. We are still not even close to Progressive or Geico in terms of combined ratios. They have much lower expense ratios. They still beat us by 15-20 cents on every dollar, which is mainly due to SF agency. We've had the longest bull run market in history since 2009 and when we have the next big market correction (and it will happen) SF will be right back in the can as we will be running a loss and can't make up the difference with investments anymore. We are just buying business in the simplest terms. Tipsy has accomplished nothing except for maybe an OCS/text option and to double/triple everyones work load. This creates high turnover/strokes/horrible working environments and keeps salary and expenses lower. Heck of a business model but that is it in a summary!

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Post ID: @1drr+1aAQdRk2

@1jli…maybe back off the sugar and caffeine a bit.

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Post ID: @1zai+1aAQdRk2

@noa+1aAQdRk2 That is exactly my point! Do you think for a minute "THEY" don't manipulate the numbers for their narrative? The theory of elasticity is alive and well. The rubber band has broke and not in the favor of the worker bees who are in the trenches pushing it to the limit and beyond to "TRY" and fit their narrative at the cost of their health and mental illness. Then, the elites upstairs have no mercy on them and continue to push for more and more. It is so obvious. The work ethic of the worker bees is being abused by the narrative, They need to stop reading those Marxist books and come back to a free market place in order to STOP thinking "all about me" and focus more on "us." "They" have literally made their numbers by hurting many families by taking them away from their homes, micromanaging, and focusing on numbers. "They" need to begin to realize that ethics, morals and virtues create wealth and NOT destroying the worker bees health and mental well being. When they destroy, the wealth is short lived. Why you may ask? The truth will always prevail. If you hurt someone for you own benefit, it always comes back around.

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Post ID: @1jli+1aAQdRk2

I don't know about other segments, but my section in injury pushes same day contact on new claims, 24 hours is just the slow. We have 2-3 people out pretty much every day on my team, so we are having to work their tasks also daily. Inventory goes up obviously, leaderships only answer is to settle more claims. Staffing is the clear answer here, if half of my day consists of working other CS claims, how can I settle my claims?

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Post ID: @1cxv+1aAQdRk2

HA HA! you work for She-ite Farm. From most respected to most disrespected in 5 short years. From further to worse. A laughing stock...industry buffoons. Ha Ha

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Post ID: @1bgd+1aAQdRk2

Ha ha! You work at Sh--e Farm. From first to worse in 5 years! HA HA!

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Post ID: @1nxk+1aAQdRk2

Huge thriving changes all on the backs of Claims. Lets continue to be penny wise and dollar foolish. When you don't have a work force that can keep-up with the customer service expectation you are out of business. Give us what we need secure our future , not destroy it. We are under staffed and expected to meet quality metrics. We will meet metrics and SLOs because that is where the incentive is, shortcuts will reduce quality and customers. That is the origin of the problem.

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Post ID: @1ejq+1aAQdRk2

I understand and can lament with you. But remember claims as a department represents over half of all SF employees, it’s a big driver of costs. The “old world” you mention had a cost structure much higher than our competitors and it wasn’t sustainable. I’m not saying you have to agree with it, but it is understandable why SF felt the need to cut costs to try to complete. And compete State Farm is, will grow 1.1 millio. Autos in just the first 4 months, a feat no one thought possible.

I don’t know what the answer is, the industry is so competitive and customers constantly price shop and switch...if SF didn’t develop a competitive cost structure we were goners. But then as you mention service goes down...I don’t think customers understand the race to the bottom with premium means less timely and personalized service when they need it most.

The irony is many people on this board say exactly what the OP is saying, but then mock SF as a dinasour that is dying. The truth is SF has made huge changes and is thriving...it’s just those changes drove our cost and impacted employee lives.

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Post ID: @1gqs+1aAQdRk2

You might have gotten a file reopened now and then, BUT it was rare if the file was properly handled. You could remember the customer by name if I recall. Today......I believe it is impossible.

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Post ID: @kku+1aAQdRk2

The numbers were wrong even a few decades ago. My “ official” claim inventory was 40 active files. I had over 400. Everybody in the service center did. But management’s trick was to open and close every file on first contact. Then all the drafts got a -3 at the end of the code….signifying a payment made after the file closed. All I’m saying is that it’s always been possible to manipulate the numbers to meet the narrative.

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Post ID: @noa+1aAQdRk2

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