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Auto-Owners Insurance

Engaged Employer

Auto-Owners Insurance reviews

3.1

47% would recommend to a friend

(1,076 total reviews)
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Jamie P. Whisnant

52% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

Auto-Owners Insurance has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 1,076 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Auto-Owners Insurance employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Insurance industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
2.0
May 18, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits, job security. They promote from within 99% of the time. Good vacation program. Mostly nice people to work with (with exception of management).

Cons

This place sucks you into their world & tries to 'mold' you into one of them. They have these values that a past president claims to have come up with but in reality he paid a consultant for. And the values are really only 2, not 10. Prudence & Profit. Skip the rest, that's what the execs at lunch talk about. Many good people work there. The issue is the ones who try to do things that make sense are pushed aside & often told they have to work on their attitude or demeanor, or some other lame management jargon. Middle management consist of a large, layered puppet show. No one feels like they can make a decision from middle mgt on down, for fear of being hung out to dry. All decisions inevitably are made by at least an rvp on up. If you have an rvp that supports this program, good luck. There are meetings about meetings about meetings. Then they wonder why their customers (agents) complain about our service. No one is there to pick up the phone or answer an email because they are in a meeting! It is literally a circus. As for how people are treated, you can be doing as good or better a job than the next person, but if ONE person in upper management decides that they have an issue with you, throw in the towel. And all it takes is one little thing to cause that, you are black listed. It goes the other way too. If one of them sees you at the grocery store, strikes up a conversation, decides they like you, you are all of a sudden on the 'fast track' & can do no wrong, even though you may not be the right person for the job. There is favoritism & nepotism running rampant. There was a book by a past ceo co-written called 'Take the Stairs'. That guy was the son-in-law of a past ceo. Stairs? Escalator is a better name for the book. After it came out, everyone received a copy & it was 'recommended' that we all read it. How could one stomach it if they knew the story of the dynasty? No thanks. The one thing many of us working there always thought was that we, being a prudent & frugal as we are, did not pay anyone, all the way to the top, like an Enron exec was paid. I always guessed that a top exec would make around $500k-$2m depending on the bonus structure (for those of you who do not work there, this may sound very low, but if you do, it makes sense). Well, not the case. The past ceo I referred to made, in one year (2008) $14M. Yes people, Fourteen million dollars. Make your own judgement about taking the stairs.

1.0
Apr 19, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stable company-claim no layoffs in almost 100 years, Christmas & incentive bonus, retirement matching plan, pension, full benefits, company vehicle with field position (comes with stipulations), lots of nice co-workers.

Cons

Work load for claim reps is unmanagable (150+ open files/rep is low count for position) and puts the employee in a bad position given the nature of the job. Reviews are often subjective and do not provide clear feedback on how to move forward toward promotions. Pay is significantly lower than industry average, even when factoring in bonuses. Yearly reviews rarely result in raises in excess of 2% regardless of level of performance. Management appears to neglect staffing shortages in claims division. Travel for training is required and employees have to share rooms and are not provided adequate transportation. Company vehicle is tracked for GPS and driving habits, and associates are required to pay $.16 per mile driven for personal miles. Company expectation is that employees stay at work as long as it takes to complete workload based on company claims handling guidelines.

2.0
Jun 16, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits, decent starting pay ( if fresh out of college), Xmas bonus and Incentive Bonus. Wasn't aware there was a restructuring of the Incentive Bonus until reading other reviews, but it's still a nice perk. Good experience for learning the industry. Free continuing education program - you can get your CPCU ( essentially a master's degree for insurance) for free. The Home Office training schools are nice too. You're treated very well.

Cons

No vacation or sick-time provided when you first start. You accrue this time monthly. After you put some years in though it is nice. Archaic management practices, and they talk out of both sides of their mouth. They'll harp that we need to be very careful, and thorough in our Underwriting, but then are upset when our 'numbers' don't look good. You can't win. The way to have solid underwriting, and good numbers?! More staffing. The way to keep your current employees so the new staff can be trained adequately? Pay in line with other insurance companies. A lot of good, and experienced people quit due to pay. Most companies will pay $10,000-$15,000 more a year if you have Underwriting experience going in. And the raise structure at A-O is a joke. You can work your tail off over a years time, bring in big accounts, etc.etc, have a great yearly review, and still end up with only a 2% raise (as opposed to the 3% maximum). You're left thinking, I worked that hard, and for what? I'm not being paid what I am worth. A raise is better than no raise, but it doesn't keep it from being awful. There is a lot of lip-service from management on potential promotions to a different position, but it never happens. I think this is a management tactic to try and get you to stay with them longer. Un-paid 'extra' time is expected, but when we are already under paid there is no motivation to do it. AO technically only makes you work 37.5 hours a week because we have an hour lunch. Which is nice. And that could be part of their reasoning for paying less. But here is a novel idea: If you want more production out of us require a 40 hour work week. 8am-5pm. 2.5 more hours for each employee. We'd have to be paid more, but it's not like the company can't afford it. If someone in management doesn't like you personally, you're not getting promoted. Regardless of performance. But If a certain boss really likes an employee, they can't be touched, even if they royally suck at their job and have been requested by other employees to be fired. Men have to wear tie everyday. It's more like a noose, and a reminder that you work for 'the man' everyday. Evidently wearing a tie helps you underwrite better, and have good numbers. Who knew? We are paid less than most other industry underwriters, yet are forced to pay for dressing as if we are the highest paid...? Makes total sense!

Viewing 1054 - 1056 of 1,076 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,200 Auto-Owners Insurance reviews submitted anonymously by Auto-Owners Insurance employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Auto-Owners Insurance is right for you.