Farmers Insurance - How Good is Support for Agents?

[mllecroissant]

Hi Everyone,
I'm considering becoming a Farmer's agent (also looking at Allstate, State Farm, and Nationwide). I have experience as a project manager at large companies but not in actually running my own business. So my question is, how much support do you get from the company itself in terms of running your office? Do they tell you exactly how to do different things (like how to prospect, quote, close a sale, deal with customer questions, etc)? Or do you have to reinvent the wheel? If they do tell you what procedures to follow, does that feel intrusive, like they are limiting your creativity? Or does it really help you run the business as efficiently as possible?

Thank you in advance! I look forward to hearing some experienced agents perspectives on these companies, especially Farmers.

 

[markschneider86]

Go independent. No other way to go...

 

[CLee]

I agree, the best option is independent, but it took me 10 years to feel confident enough to go out there and open my own agency. If you're brand new, you will probably need to start with a captive situation for the training/experience. I have worked for both a State Farm agent and Allstate Agent as an agency employee, from my experience State Farm has MUCH better agent support, for both the agent and their staff. I worked for a State Farm agent when I started my carreer and was used to having a great underwriting team I could call, a great claims dept, any time I had a question I had a particular person in the home office to help me. The agent I worked for was a training agent, I know they gave her a lot of training and support, plus money for marketing, setting up the office, paying us, etc during the first 2 years. I also know they required her to have 2 employees, at one point she was down to just me and decided not to hire anyone to replace the other person and they told her she had to hire someone, she wasn't happy with that. I left there and went to work for an Allstate agent, it was night and day! If you call their agency "support" team - a call center situation - they tell you to look it up on their online site, they refuse to help you. I've had customers sitting right in front of me and I've had policy questions and called and they told me to look up the answer myself - even when I told them I couldn't find the answer online that's why I called. Very frustrating. I really wasn't at all happy with Allstate. Now I own my own independent agency, and of course there is NO support from ANYONE, you've got to figure it all out yourself! I've also had Farmers as an independent, their billing system is strange and if you have a question you get shuffled a lot through the phone list, they really act like they don't care, but for the last year they're in the process of pulling out of my state on the indie side so that may be why they acted like they didn't give a crap when I called - I don't know if you are a captive if you get better service or not. I work with Nationwide with one of their nonstandard auto products, the customer service is FANTASTIC and the marketing rep is in my office all the time and very helpful, but I have absolutely no idea about the captive system with them. I hope this is helpful to you!

 

[superfly33]

Not much in terms of support from the company. Most of your support would come from your District Manager if your District Manager is good.

 

[markschneider86]

All the support you need as an independent agent is a book called, "You can't Teach a kid to ride a bike at a seminar" by David H Sandler. If you follow his techniques you'll be in good shape. I do a combo of cold calling, websites, referrals, and do very well....

 

[hello..]

Sandler is the man! Doing that training increased me from 25 policies a month to doing 68 the next!

 

[Guest]

Sandler is the man! Doing that training increased me from 25 policies a month to doing 68 the next!

Thx for reviving a year old thread for that awesome testimonial

 

[hello..]

Lol thanks RBA. I think Sandler earned it!

 

[Guest]

Lol thanks RBA. I think Sandler earned it!

Hey Hello................GOODBYE!!

 

[Hawkfnm]

Independent all the way. I think you should canvass the local independent shops in your area and see if they have any open positions. Why learn to be a captive when you'll eventually be unhappy?