If State Farm offered buyouts would you take it?
27 replies (most recent on top)
It's a sad state of affairs if truly agents are pitted against operations. This company was built on the backs of hard work and cooperation between both parties. Operations would never have a job without agents and agents need operations. Agents today have so little say in what happens. Truly most on here don't have the guts to start a scratch agency, finance their families for years and live on a hope and a prayer. Believe me it's a tough road but agents are self starters and should reap the reward for taking the risk of putting everything on the line. I'm 40 years I and still do it every day.
@n3+1jjs8v41g How embarrassingly low.
Agents are in dire need of a compensation increase. Property taxes and his fees on my Naples condo are going thru the roof. My wife wants a new BMW, my girlfriend is demanding a nicer apartment, Ivy League tuition is up double digits for my kids. Things are getting so tight I may have to let one of my staff go.
Cut the fat! Overpaid agents!
SF has been going to h-lllll in a hand basket for the last 20+ years. Just slowly rotting away, bit by bit! First it was Big Dog, and then endless cycles of growth and loss, MT and culminating in the last round of Big Dog 2.0 with a $27 billion dollar loss. The last gasp will be when SF becomes the #2 auto insurer in 6-7 months with no way to fix it.
You do the math on who needs to go! We already tried firing 50% of the employees and that doesn't work!
11-12% SF Agency/Acquistion
9-11% Marketing
6-7% LAE (claims)
4% General Expenses. (all other employees/buildings)
2% (taxes and fees)
You people have been telling us agency doesn’t work and is in trouble since at least 1998, when I can aboard in claims. I recently retired as an agent. Three contracts and endless changes later. And the one thing that remains constant is that agency is the heart of the company as far as the customer is concerned.
BTW, I had hoped they’d buyout the AA97’s. But they never did so I just retired on the money I saved for myself.
Dude, I just sp-t coffee all over my computer screen, thanks for the laugh. 😆
You better start saving some of those rate increases! After U/W automation hits and is fully implemented SF is going to clear out the agency ranks! Already rumors about repurposing many of the internal folks from U/W towards "acquisition". Turn on all the HiRoad stuff and hire some decent people to get Quote and Bind going again and your days will be over! Start counting your days....just a matter of time.
Dude you distracted me, I was just working on my taxes and my net as an agent was up $162k from last year. And yea, I’m worth every penny. Keep the rate increases coming baby, I could loose 10-15% of my book and still make more, every 10% of rate increase makes me 80k a year more. Why you so bitter, cubicle getting tight? There has never been a better time to be an agent, come on in.
Poor SF agents....yes they do have better technology and many more independent agents that sell their products. Pulling out of states.....that's a hilarious excuse..... since Progressive has doubled its book of business every 7-9 years. Progressive used to pay me almost 12% upfront when I wrote the business but I got less than 2% each renewal to do any service/retention. SF you guys are getting a minimum of 8%+ at each renewal. You are even more useless and get 7% on the stuff that is referred to you from the internet, that you did nothing to earn. What you really miss besides just how expensive/uselses SF agents are, is the investment advantage Progressive has when they are running a profit before their invested premium dollars get a return. SF prices at 103% from dollar $1 and tries to invest to make up the difference. Progressive is around 92-93% per every dollar to start with. They have more money to pay with! They have just as good investment people as SF! Yes they are 20-30% cheaper. Their loss ratios are also better because they are not writing all the bad business that generates claims like SF's book. All which require more staffing and higher premiums/losses. SF basically spent $27 billion dollars, ran 50% lean on needed staffing, just to write 10 million junky policies. Bought the business! If it doesn't do it that way, SF really can't grow consistently with any real growth numbers. All smoke and mirror, Just watch....this will not be the year of growth. U/W Automation will make it even worse as it is a lot harder to manipulate rates, CRIs, include unwarranted discounts/fake tactics to write new business. CS said it in the last Exec briefing, "we sell a product that no one can afford anymore"! In 2016 SF had 71,000 employees. End of 2024 we had 63,000 employees and that was up from 53,000 the year before! Take that into consideration since we have added 10 million policies since 2016! SF's technology still su-ks too! It's not operations/employees putting us out of business, it's agents! Everyone knows it!
They are a major beneficiary when a company pulls out of a state. Does not mean they have a better price but they have a wider distribution channel as almost every independent agent offers them. They also have a first class online platform for direct sales.
@kb I know Geico has profitability issues but how did Progressive grow 7+ million policies in 2024 alone if they are not profitable? Our biggest non profitable growth periods were Big Dog campaign prior and now the last few years, and we did not grow a fraction of that amount during either campaign.
Most of the Billions that have been spent to leverage technology for the agents has been a waste of the policyholders money and our time. Ask an agent why it takes a year to train a team member on these systems. As far as the previous posters logic or lack of, If eliminating agency was such a money saver then Geico and Progressive should be 20-30% less than SF premium wise, in face they both have significant profitability issues and normally have a price point higher than SF.
Buy out! Laughable! I say cut the workforce by at least 20 to 30% in all areas. Cut premiums to make policies more affordable to customers. Leverage technology for the consumer not agents, claims, underwriting etc and go back to focusing on the customer instead of sitting at home in your PJs looking at a computer screen.
11-12% all in is pretty close, and once again, we are worth it. What do you figure it would cost SF to hire another 15-20 thousand service staff to service the clients, let me tell you so you don’t hurt yourself, a lot more than the cost of agency. Don’t you think the company has been having this same internal conversation for over 100 years, I do and yet the answer is always keep the agents. I am sure they are not as sharp as you though, maybe you are being under utilized at SF? As an agent I have made a lot of money, but the first 5/10 years were pretty slim, price of admission scooter. Step up and try it if you got the ba--s. Yea, I thought so.
Yes almost 12-13% of our current expense ratio is just pure agency compensation. Throw in all the separate systems support/programming, Agency Sales Leaders/Resources, Marketing support, Agency Travel/Convention and about 25% of all the useless call volume into the organization is from agency.....which requires tons of staffing to answer which isn't cheap. Now factor in all the field discounting, coaching on fraudulent claims including homeowners/auto and you have a product where agency drives up the cost 20-30%. If it was a cheaper or better way to do it Geico and Progressive agencies would be opening up on every corner and SF, Allstate, Farmers, Nationwide, would be gaining market share....not!
20-30 % cheaper? Yea right. What a clueless tool.
You sir, are totally clueless. No sense in even trying, plus I have to pack for my month at the beach bittchh.
70% of our customers will never file a claim ever, never ever! 20-30% of the insured's cause 90% of the losses! F-ck um if they get bad service we want them to leave anyways! They will create more losses! Progressive adversely selects us and hopes SF agents writes their rejects and bad business, which we do and lose money...$27 billion dollars loss! Can tell you are an agent who is clueless and knows nothing about insurance or actual real business. Great at giving realtors or mortgage brokers a kick back or hitting up the title loan places for a referral but you don't know jack sh-t about reality and your absolute zero worth in the real world! SF babies you, the public puts you one step above a tote the note used car salesman! Yes they will go online to do it quickly or wait on the phone 30 minutes to make a change if their premium is 20-30% cheaper!
Be careful what you wish for. Your ignorance is on full display, what do you think keeps these clients with SF, hint, it’s not the outstanding service they receive when interacting directly with anyone at the mothership. You think they are going to wait in the Q 45 minutes to get your cr-ppy service and then pay a premium for that privilege? You’re worried about being #2, try 3 or 4. Bottom line is the agency system is a bargain and they dammmn well know it or we would have been gone long ago. You want to know why we make so much money? It because we are worth it.
Agents are a relic of the 1970s and useless! ....... The same reason Amazon is opening more stores, Walmart doesn't want to get involved in on-line sales, Progressive will be #1 in 5-6 months (yes), Kodak is bringing back 35mm film, we will ditch our cars for horses, the internet is just a fad, Apple ONLY sales iPhones at the Apple store, and you can only buy Coke at the Coke factory!!!! LOL! As soon as U/W gets automated they are going to finally get rid of Agents! Get your retirement plans going reta-ds! CS and KS are there to make the transition smoother for you guys! Ed should have done it when they begged him to when we did Agency 2000!
"State Farm Nice" died at least a decade ago.
It takes people to service the bullsh-t lies of overpaid glorified sales agents.
I would sign so fast they would not have even finished making the offer yet. LOL.
Yes. They are up to their bullying constructive dismissal tactics again against older tenured employees. Severance package or buyout or whatever is the right thing for them to do to the ones they are targeting.
No, I LOVE it here
I can always tell when people post things like this that they don’t have the pension or don’t care about it.