My State Farm agent indicated State Farm is going to cut rates significantly this fall to beat the competition. Any truth to that?
82 replies (most recent on top)
Rate cuts will not save the business. It's gonna take a long long long time to heal from the damage done to both th internal and external customer. Ever hear the saying: You reap what you sow.
We took a 15% rate reduction and a additional 5% with DSS and now they told us Friday, we are filing to take another double digit rate decrease. My agency really hasn’t had any claims since nobody driving. It’s going to start hurting income wise
@8evp.....You are sadly mistaken. But consider the implications of what you said. Employees on this board constantly complain about agents, as though the employees have a clue what they do. And your statement implies that employees who become agents are the worst of the bunch. Doesn’t say much for the quality of Ops employees, does it?
Wait until the new schedule of payments comes out. They aren’t pushing the mutual funds mortgage and bank for nothing. I can here the whining now. Better have a load of cash put away. The gravy train coming into the station especially when they take over service. What are the agents that do nothing going to do???
Agent here on the A97 contract, I feel the need to correct the previous ignorant poster, most of the agents brought on under the agency 2000 are some of the best business people I have ever seen, they have to be to survive. They can never coast as the contract will eat them alive if they do.
Most of the agents appointed during the agency 2000 era are whiners and trainwrecks.
Prior entry.......what? What does that even mean?
Prior entry.....that's what you get when you sell out your tenure.
When agents talk about the current sh– show, it’s because the promises are not being kept and agents are trying to fill so many gaps. CCC constantly issues raw new autos when they should do State to State transfers. (They must get the commission? Because the agent doesn’t). Then an agent has to clean up a huge mess when the customer has duplicate policies in duplicate states with duplicate SFPP accounts, and none of the required signature documents are submitted. Claims doesn’t return customer calls. Service and Underwriting take 6-8 weeks to process changes and agents have to soothe the customer through multiple billing cycles with the wrong policies on their account. This company has not delivered on the promise in years. And many, many agents came from inside the company back when we really were the best. It’s so frustrating.
Bottom line at the end of every workday......ANY mo–n CAM MAKE A PROMISE. THE REAL PERSON KEEPS THE PROMISE. Agents forget the partnership.
Read these boards a little closer. We don’t really see agents whining. For the most part, they’re saying they’ll be OK either way.
It’s lower level opps employees pretending agents are whining or clueless. My read is that many of those employees are envious, and rightly insecure.
agents need to stop whining about their commission being cut. nobody is cutting your stupid commission. the commission that comes in while you’re on the golf course. the cost savings comes from cutting the staffing down and expecting less people to do more. have you seen the latest claims satisfaction numbers? they need to cut all the extraneous managers and directors with no direct reports. too many chiefs, not enough indians. that’s your biggest expense, mike. you’re not dumb, so why are you acting like it?
Exactly. Agents will be OK. Not because nothing is going to change, but because of who they are and what they’re willing to do. They’ve decided, before becoming agents, that waiting for somebody else to determine what happens to them is simply not their cup of tea. They’ll either adapt to what State Farm throws at them, or they’ll (again) find another self directed way to make a living. They’re concerned. They’re paying attention. They’re ALWAYS trying to figure out what’s next. But they’re not scared because that’s a waste of time.
Thanks for your concern, you must be a top level financial wiz. Here is a news flash, most agents I know will be just fine, we have been able to navigate sht show after sht show after sht show the company has thrown at us and yet here we are, still keeping the promise. If it gets too bad we will just move on down the road and most of is will make a great living doing something else. We were given nothing and have earned every dime we banked. What is your next job going to look like? I bet you will be wearing a name tag.
Looks like agents commission cut coming we created the behavoir steady Eddie not to worried about growth, now we are on the other side of the fence agents think they are just going to cruise thru
Good luck I would also recommend not buying anything big.
It’s going to change quick just like in 97, SF will make it there’s going to be a big reality check for everyone else. Better get some big cash put away. I feel bad for the new guys they are going to get stung
What’s wrong with hitting the sauce at 2 pm? Hennigans. No tell, no smell Scotch.
D–g TEST EM ALL! AGENTS TOO!
@5osi the problem is you would catch significantly more line employees by sheer volume but if you want to out a TM or a VP or two let's d–g test everyone.
Funny someone would say "drunk or high." Boy do I wish I could list the people from VPA to TM that i have seen drunk and self medicated. It would shock the living daylights out of people. If they wanted to cut costs, they should d–g test at all levels. Then if positive, let em go.
If they can make a penny at the cost of someone else, heck yeah! Says a lot about their values.
R u drunk or high?
Insurance scoring is redlining. And segregating vunerable. Their claims for price cutting are aele five. And ridiculous marketing. As always.
@feelthepain.....You do not appear to know many State Farm agents. Maybe 30 years ago this was a fairly common scenario. Today, about half of agents go bankrupt trying to start up.
reducing rates after increasing them in Jan/Feb, that is like wanting a reward for putting out a fire after you were the one that started it.
I know it will depend what state you are in but in my case we can't beat a lot of companies on rates, Progressive, GEICO, and Allstate are all beating the quotes I am giving.
As a long time agent SF, cutting commissions would be devastating, I would most likely have to sell one of my beachfront vacation properties, and the wife is going to be livid when I tell her she has to cut back to a new Benz every other year instead of every year. I may even have to let one of my country club memberships go. Do you really think it’s fair for us to take the brunt of this? Let’s start with the internal expenses first, eliminate the pension and 401k match, higher deductibles on health care and cut back on paid time off, internal SF employees have way too lucrative of a compensation package right now, they should have to feel some pain also.
Cut more! Cut staff! Reduce costs!
6 months auto rate is now $530 where previous bill was around $700.
I received notification from State Farm in July that my renewal rate would decrease by at least 1 percent in Late August; when it did not I was told “you are unlucky and you will have to wait for
THE NEXT 6 month renewal. “ Missed the decrease by a few days I was told.
@1qoq....please enlighten us with your expertise on agency and agency compensation. Agents are on so many different contracts with so many different amendments that most of them can’t even have a real discussion with each other about it. Nobody is in the same boat. And I really think State Farm has done that intentionally in order,to completely isolate them.
You folks working in a hub or call center are probably working hard. Nothing is easy. But not one of you knows how agents get paid or what they have to do in order to earn a living. So just stop pretending you do. BTW, if it’s so easy and so lucrative, why aren’t you doing it?
Will the ET footprint be cut due quality of agent and customer deliveries? Would think we could consider outsourcing IT.
Yes they are outsource everything and automate to pay 3-5x more expenses to AWS, Azure so not saving money. ET Managers, IT architects and technology engineers should be fired. This is nothing but them wanting to acquire 5/5 ratings to get the EIP bonus but screwing the costs of the policy holder and fake results.
I’m sure they are worried about Amazon new venture to many agents comfortable only reaching 20% of there of there book every year.
It’s a matter of time, they aren’t sending out the emails every year to invest your AIPP for nothing and keeping all these alliances. Covering there back side. Get yourself in the position to walk at any time it’s going to change quickly.
New contract details will be released soon. There is a strong desire to get this over before the 22 convention and centennial celebration.
Bout time agents take cuts! Long overdue!
It’s been a good run hope everyone put some jack away.
Our SVP told us there are commission changes coming too, not sure what they have in mind, but I wouldn’t buy anything big.
We heard the same five years ago there is a commission restructure coming end of 2021 just like Allstate already started, they will handle payments, billing and policy changes servicing just like they do claims now.
Not sure who told u they aren’t doing anything better double check. Why do u think they have all these huge footprints in the Hubs. Unbelievable
I thought the customer has been the one that keeps that sh-t show together? My my ......
@byy. A rate cut is a commission cut. We’ve all been speculating about an actual commission cut for at least a decade. Unless there’s an announcement, it means nothing.
Many agents have been told it’s not happening unless things change a lot for the better. From the customer’s viewpoint, agents are the only thing holding this sh– show together right now.