Farmers Insurance Group reviews

There are so many negatives of working at Farmers it would be nearly impossible to remember them all, but here are some of the "highlights": Customer Service: At its heart, claims handling is about providing the customer a service. The way individual Farmers claims are divided among 3 or 4 reps makes it nearly impossible to provide good customer service, no matter how pure your intentions. Farmers customers are treated like nothing more than a number. Very poorly structured operation creates redundancy for employees and frustration and anger in customers. Productivity: Farmers metrics for bodily injury claims adjusters bear little reflection on how skilled a rep is at handling these types of claims. Rather, it is designed to benefit adjusters who settle any open claims as quickly possible never mind that many of these claims should not be paid at all. Less ethical reps skilled at manipulating the metric system are most successful in this company. Culture: The culture of Farmers driven by two things: FEAR - Fear of losing your job and QA. Never mind that customers are satisfied with how helpful you were, if you are a day late in sending a letter out, that's what they notice. It's a toxic cesspool of micromanagement and you are fully expected to "buy in" to their Kool Aid. If you think that keeping your head down, putting your hours in and doing your best to help customers out is what you will need to succeed at Farmers, you are DEAD WRONG. Verbal/Written Warnings: Over half of the KoP office was working under some type of action plan (verbal or written warning) despite mostly all of these people having experience, dedication and putting in well over 40 hours a week. Once you are put on warning, you never really have a realistic chance of getting off. Management: There are a select few decent supervisors and managers at Farmers. However, those who do not fit this bill are petty and vindictive, displaying overt favoritism towards employees they like. To be fair supervisors are pretty direct when they don't like you and will not try to hide the fact that they plan on firing you and that you should have already been looking for a new job. Unfortunately they are also prone to dishonesty in their written warnings, deliberately fudging your numbers to make it appear you do not know how to do your job; or worse, implicating you for showing up a half an hour late to a meeting to imply that you don't care, when in reality you were out in the field helping a customer and actually showed only 5 minutes late. Of course, this supervisor was not even present, thus wouldn't know and was only going off secondhand allegations of others who were present, which regardless of how untrue these allegations were, speaks to the ingrained culture of pettiness and backstabbing seen throughout Farmers. Work-life balance: Simply put, there is no such thing as an expectation of work life balance. Management expects that in addition to the work you put in in the office, that you will attempt to reach insureds and claimants after business hours (8, 9pm) or on weekends. That's the real reason liability reps are provided with cell phones and laptops (and more than likely tracked via same).. If you repeatedly cannot reach claimants, management will ask you why you are not calling people around dinner time. Uh, I don't know, how about because I have a life, family, hobbies, etc... and have already put in 45-50 hours this week ? And you won't pay overtime? Micromanagement: Every aspect of your performance and "behavior" is analyzed. Behavior being a sticking point because you can make all of your numbers and your supervisor just doesn't like you, you can be denied a bonus, kept on probation because you are somehow not living up to their highly subjective expectations and/or ultimately terminated. Morale: If you want to work for a company where rock-bottom morale is the norm, Farmers is the place for you! Working for Farmers is a draining, soul-sucking experience. There are three types of employees at Farmers: one, the folks who have been in the business for 20+ years who are just trying to hold on long enough to reach retirement. Two, the fresh out of college hire who gets paid the industry bare minimum and will flee this dumpster fire as soon as another job offer comes along elsewhere. And three, the employees who never, ever would have voluntarily worked for Farmers but through involuntary circumstances (e.g., AIG buyout) were forced to work for this company, most if not all of who are working under verbal or written warning and who will either be terminated or voluntarily leave before they are terminated. Farmers is an awful place to work. If you are considering applying or interviewing to work at Farmers, PLEASE do your homework. Sometimes, a paycheck is just not worth your dignity.