State Farm Reviews

Pros

Regulated and quality driven work performance atmosphere . Numbers driven operation, policy organized . Must be flexible to work varied assignments and tasks.

Cons

Performance driven and numbers driven work environment . Somewhat rigid in regards to policy and procedures. Must be able to work within rigid guidelines.

Advice to Senior Management

provide training and more support by front line managers. Allow for learning curve and be able to provide specialized training.

Pros

The company has Great financial strength.

Cons

Once working for one agent and then trying to move onto another agent often times even when leaving on good terms some agents tend to throw you under the bus.

Advice to Senior Management

There need to be more opportunities available to minorities as well as women going into corporate positions.

Pros

The company is a leader in the industry and enjoys great stability and reputation. The company looks after its employees and provides great opportunity for advancement.

Cons

The job itself is very stressful. There is a lot of work that needs to get done and there are deadlines to meet.

Advice to Senior Management

The management needs to realize that employees cannot perform at 100% all the time. perhaps they should look at improving their staffing and hire more employees.

Pros

there were good people in a clean environment.

Cons

very large organization making it difficult for it to move forward.

Advice to Senior Management

stay current

Pros

SF is a very loyal employer. They attempt to achieve a very balanced business model that can withstand tough times without simply slashing jobs. You might find a higher salary somewhere else, but you'd likely be taking on more risk as well.

Solid benefit package.

Flexibility as it relates to work-life balance is valued.

Cons

Pace in today's marketplace is a challenge for SF as it's most senior leadership learned to lead in a different era.

Pros

Short Work day, Pension benefits, good work,-life balance. A low stress job with a lot of job security and good management.

Cons

This company is run by a lot of old men who are not very forward-thinking, they need to modernize and stay current.

Advice to Senior Management

Get rid of all the agents, today everything is done online and agents only drain company resources. Also, career advancement is too slow.

Pros

People, opportunity, work environment, benefits just to name a few. There is a lot of down time so if you are a student it is a great time to do your homework.

Cons

The starting pay is lower than most places. There are people with masters making this pay so the workplace is very competitive.

Pros

Business model is unique to each agency
Work/life balance
Opportunity to open your own agency
A lot of training opportunities within the company

Cons

Salary/hourly wage is low
Small, if any, benefits
Each agent can have very different methods of doing business
Sometimes daily tasks can be boring and tedious

Advice to Senior Management

Compensate the agents better through their contract in order to provide more benefits to their team members, more support for each agency through corporate

Pros

* When you work for an agent, corporate has no say about how the agency is run

* Pays health insurance (some)

Cons

* Can't write fire through State Farm Florida, they tick off current customers by raising their rates through the roof

* Binding autos in Standard business or binding in Miami Dade is harder than pulling teeth

* Agents are disconnected with their agency/team and show up whenever they feel like it

* State Farm Auto keeps raising their rates - irritating customers

* >60% of time spent pacifying customers that have been loyal for 30 years

* Too many underwriting cancellations on business that should be kept by company

* Agent-field idea box removed from ABS (Corporate got tired of us telling them what they should do)

* Nepotism in agency environment

* AFO meetings waste people's time

* Unrealistic expectations of agent goals based on all of the above

* Constant pressure to sell life and bank (Nobody cares about your Bank, State Farm - Get over it and get rid of it!)

* No open door policy about team member abuse - Don't like it: Just leave!

* Systems are outdated (3 different programs to quote auto insurance)

* The pay is a joke (sub $13.00/hr)

* Even though we sell life and health, we have to pay a portion of our health and agent wont give us life insurance.

* Even though we sell 401Ks, team members can't afford them

* No opportunity to move from agency into corporate (unless you know somebody)

* Cold calling customers that don't want our products to the point where they cancel their policies so we leave them alone.

* Commercial business is non-existant

* No recognition from agent when a job is well done

* Overworked with followups, quotes, service, and mistakes made by afterhours service

Advice to Senior Management

* Recruite AFO/Corporate staff from Agency environment (We deserve a break too and a better job, and we probably know more about writing policies and our customer base than that shiny new graduate straight out of college) - 18,000 agents should give you a pretty smart pool to pull from.

* Fire all consultants, period - All they do is waste your money

* Pay us more money

* Enough with the pressure from the AFO - State Farm can't write business right now, why does Corporate put pressure on us to write less and AFO puts pressure on us to write more? Make up your mind!

* Break up Bloomington and move somewhere you really have access to a good talent pool!

Pros

I met some lifelong friends and was also able to gain some valuable experience by working in other departments. State Farm will reimburse your college tuition if they approve of the coursework. They have gotten more liberal over the years and reimburse just about anything that you can loosely tie to your job.

Cons

State Farm has an incredible bean counter culture. Basically, you log in to a computer system that counts the time you are logged in, the amount of calls you take, the paper work you do, basically everything. Additionally, you have to fill out lengthy time sheets detailing your work weekly and to top it all off, you are expected to maintain very high production margins. In a nutshell, if you think you can squeeze in an extra 5 minutes on your break one afternoon, forget about it because six managers will ask you what happened to that 5 minutes last Thursday as it is affecting your production. Don't try to game the system either, because management looks for this as well. Unless of course they take a liking to you, then game away.

As far as management goes, it's like the movie Office Space. You have 6 bosses and at any given time one may tell you to do something. Where it gets really interesting is when they start contradicting each other.

Advice to Senior Management

Just be real with your employees. We get it, your boss wants your teams' production to be higher so therefore you need to squeeze more performance out of us. If you'd just say that, instead of trying to cheerleader us with fake promises and muddy corporate lingo, we'd probably pull together and work harder for you.