Thread regarding State Farm Insurance layoffs

Switch agents you can do online now, I have great agent and his team mirrors him. No hard sell no unethical sales approaches. Some of the newer agents cut corners not sure if its for the $$$ or just ego. Good luck

I have an agent-never talked to him one time. My neighbor has SF but cannot name his agent? What is the value?

That is the way forward .. commoditized product.. millennial market .. give me a good enough price not an agent..

If I move and change states. First thing I'll be checking for is an insurance company with agents and good employee reviews. Would rather pay knowing it's supporting something locally and knowing employees are treated fairly.

Agents are as obsolete as the pay phone and the old company jingle. The old dinosaurs have lived too large for a long time. I do sympathize with the new agents as they bought stock in the titanic. R.i.P

My agent is a family member. If I leave the state when I retire the likelihood of me sticking with SF is damn near 0.

My agent is the one and only reason I still have my policies with State Farm. He is kind, caring and compassionate. Also highly successful and an all around decent human being. If/when he goes so will I. Along with the rest of his huge book of business I’m sure.

Thank you 4Tui, awesome job of summing things up from an agents perspective. The beauty of being self employed is we never take ANYTHING for granted, most agents I know have always had an exit plan, they own a side business or real estate portfolio and have planned for the day when things get so bad they can walk. Until that tipping point arrives I will milk this cow for all it’s worth.

Some of you who work for State Farm have no idea how the money comes into the company that pays all of us in agency and operations. The agents drive 100% of the growth in the company. Without the agents, the company would have collapsed into a hilarious pile of folksy Illinois lore long ago. The agents' staff drives the success in the agents' offices whether it's a brand new agent, or a 50 year agent. If you look at Glassdoor, you might be surprised to see a 3.1 Star satisfaction rating. That's abysmal, but it would be even worse if so many agents' employees didn't post there. Most of the positive reviews come from those employees who work for agents who treat them well, and provide a good work environment. The irony is that they aren't State Farm employees. Those reviews by employees in their agents' offices artificially prop up the overall rating. Similarly, the agents - in a time of great change - artificially prop up a company that has lost its way. The sad part is that it will probably work out for the company - or at least the company will self-report that it has - and the agents and their 50,000+ employees will fade away into other jobs. It may be a decade. It may not be that long. What is happening now is that the company is operating in an extraordinarily (for its culture) brutal way behind the scenes, while it puts out a facade of caring, compassion and "just wanting to help everybody everywhere." It's the classic front. At the end of the month, the company will put on a $50M-$100M show for the agents dumb enough to go listen. I'll be there. Free trip, right? Almost miraculously, the company reached its financial metric of $100B just in time to announce it to us in the bright lights. How many of us will have the courage to sit on our hands? What is $100B without considering how you've gotten there over the last few years. How many lives have been disrupted to get there? What is $100B when the future is bleak for a great number who have built this company, and not a single person in leadership has the courage to admit that? We used to joke when Chuck would tell us every single time "There's never been a better time to be a . . . " I can't even get it out. It's too depressing. At any rate, sorry to talk over so many previous comments. I respect my operations partners. Most who have nasty things to say about agents just can't fathom the average 20-year financial commitment of $2.5M. That's right. Each 20-year agent, on average, has spent on average $125,000 per year, every year. For most of us it has been much more than that. We've also made a good living. Because of our employees, we've had great freedom in our schedules. We've led our employees and watched them get married, have children, suffer through divorces, pass away . . . like members of our own families. It's sad to know that is going away. The company model is slowly being impressed upon the agents - especially the newer ones. The relationships are with numbers and not people. Most of us old-timers are overstaffed, but we won't knuckle under to the pressure and cut employees to make our bottom lines look good. We'll just adjust our nest egg contributions, or tighten our household budgets. Isn't it R3markable that there isn't a comprehensive associate poll about satisfaction in our company. There's two reasons: 1. They know the results; and 2. They do not care, at all.

There’s not an experienced agent in the Company who hasn’t been planning. We’ve been on our own for a long time and that’s what we do. Employees simply do not get that. You don’t understand business until you sign paychecks on the front side.

When policyholders center goes live it’s all over. Service comp as everyone knows iir is gone. Agents have had a long time to prepare for this transition that’s why they send the email to invest your AIPP every year. For the agents that spent it for taxes or boats good luck

Big drop in service comp coming unless u are an id--t that it going to stay the same wait till u see your 15th and 30th paycheck.

It’s going to be a trainwreck like the mutual finds.

Service first shops and independent adjusters are handling claims were u been

Kill Pension today

How many agents or their staff have given the wrong explanation of a customers policy, do not understand what we can pursue on behalf of a customer, pay a claim via their draft authority for something which should not have been just paid, and other messes. Also many have been obnoxious to claims personnel, and I have actually experienced some as LIARS, making false statements against claim employees. Goodbye agents, and hello automation!

Everyone is already looking for exit door

Brand damage we are doing now mayn’t be recoverable with our gain in surplus and rates rising they leave. Unfournately it’s not the old State Farm and that’s what one of my policyholders said today, cancelled five autos and there home which they saved 32% what the f--- is going on. It can’t be that out of control whoever’s doing this needs to be reprimanded

Unload all the VP’s that don’t add value time to clean that level out by 50%. Wonder how they would handle to QTD notice. Most run around like they are busy and doing something. Cut that level by 80% and we would be ok. What a total toilet flush.

Our policyholders aren’t ready for a direct service venue they are only with my office because of my team and myself our rates are 35% higher than competition we are holding our own. Unload our Sakes Leaders waste every agent in my market thinks it’s not a value and most said they don’t see him but every couple of months unload now. No value at all I know what my goals are been doing it for 18 years.

Let’s it start now freeze Pension cut agents commissions and executive salaries in half cut associates salaries by 30%, to get to a 25% expense ratio. Aftermath Totally disengage associates everyone looking for the emergency exit door and then another ERON train wreck. Boy the book someone’s going to write. Someone drinking to much TITO’s. We aren’t ready for this for another 10 years.

In the mind of Tipsford and others...the commissons they pay agents are the biggest expense of the company...including the claims expense.....something is coming...do not know what or when....but it is the works....

@2ttl—Agency goes last because through all this other stuff, the customers need somebody to vent all their complaints on. Nobody else at State Farm talks to the customer anymore (not even Claims) and State Farm has to have that buffer between itself and the customers while they reinvent the wheel. Not sure how much longer it can work. The customers are starting to be very aware that State Farm isn’t listening to the agent’s, either.

Maybe it’s fictional but it is written well enough to raise eyebrows. Could easily be the transcript of a Tipsord propaganda video on the homepage. I don’t know much about agency but I have to think they’ll get hit like everyone else and it makes sense for Agency to go last since it will have the greatest impact to the bottom line.

P&C agents are indispensable.

Most agents on the aao5 contract incur very heavy debt and struggle at 7 to 8 % renewals, I don’t see many/any takers of a contract paying less than that, the numbers simply would not work.

@1fhm.....Since this hasn’t actually happened, it will have no effect. I think most of us expect something along these lines at some point, but somebody just made this up today. You’ll notice it stars out in quotation marks, but is not attributed to anybody.

How does this differ from the current contract? Any agents want to chim in on how this will effect their agency?

For what it’s worth, nothing like this has been communicated to this agent today.

Yeaaaaa, kill the only real source of revenue This company has, then let’s see how far we can ride this into the sunset based on remaining policy renewal’s as they bleed off. You want to see some real serious downsizing? Let’s go for it. I would think the company should be able to service work remains with about 4-5 thousand employees tops. Of course that number would decrease over time.

That does it, I'm selling my Blockbuster franchise and getting in on the bottom floor of this action.

I hope this is real, this is the change SF needs!!!

You know they turn down candidates, even internals like you, still stings doesn’t it.

They turn down people for agency? Hm. Never would have guessed that judging from the dipshits i dealt with.

We still get the full commission rate on pet insurance right?

Nah. P&C agents are indispensable. Technology will have a limited impact. Companies like Allstate, State Farm, and Farmers will always do right by their agents. I gaar-owwwn-tee it!

Another j--koff turned down for agency, get back to the fckn mailroom jagoff, my September issue of the Reflector is due out this week.

What is this Mickey Mouse sh--?