Farmers Insurance Group reviews

They like to make it difficult to succeed. Ive been with them 4 years and they've lowered our commission 3 separate times already. You're supposed to be an independent business owner, but you don't get to sell the products you want, you get to sell what Farmers wants. Otherwise they make it impossible to earn bonuses, and threaten to let you go. Over the years, most changes they've made have negatively effected their agents: adding multiple/redundant steps for accessing clients and prospects; multiple pop up windows; commission cuts; stricter guidelines for insuring people and business' resulting in fewer people being qualified to be insured with Farmers; continually adding requirements to be Farmers compliant, costing agencies $$$; pushing out smaller agencies, meaning they're making it difficult for smaller agencies to survive; out sourcing the agents Call Center to overseas; refusing to train new call center employees; irritating call system. A few years ago, when I started, they were trying to hire a lot of new agencies all over the nation, now, 4 years later, they are trying to push us out of the company. Encourage you to go into debt instead of financially helping us with marketing and hiring employees to grow at a rate they want. They teach antiquated marketing techniques. They nickel and dime you for a lot of things such as you gotta pay for your Farmers email address; website that you cant customize; E&O insurance is expensive; MVR fees; if they happen to GIVE you a policy, you only earn 40% of the already low commission, but still have to service the client like everybody else.

No benefits are paid for for your family, they are full retail price. The comissions have decreased, and the bonuses have increased, but almost impossible to achieve without spending tons of money acquiring new policies. Running an office is expensive and the bring home pay for the agent stinks royally. You will work full time, get into debt, go through at least ten people that are lazy, and end up doing all the work yourself, and bring home less than 20k, and that's after the second year. News flash! People cancel when their rates increase by 20 and 30%! Farmers blames their agents for not explaining it enough, or being nice enough. Bull crap!!! I'm spinning my wheels and still bring home around 30k after all the marketing costs, office costs, and oh! They dock your paycheck about $1000 a month for all that junk, and your office expenses are in top of that. That doesn't even include medical. Agency ownership is for people who already have money, and don't want to actively work their agency, but hire someone to work it for them, while they play golf.