www.farmers-online.com - The Comprehensive Resource Site for Agents

It's amazing what one p.o.'d person can do. This site really helps get the word out about the truth of being a Farmers agent.

I'm a recent career agent who just resigned my agency contract. I lost my subsidy after the first three months and knew I wasn't on track to get it back. In some ways, I guess I'm lucky because I didn't incur the debt you did. Still, I have to pay it back. That hurts because when I see my 1099 is less than $7k for 2006 and my expenses just totalled for tax purposes ran nearly $15k. I admit, I spent freely trying to build the agency and could have been more conservative. But then I would have probably had a 1099 for $4k or $5k a result.

Like every other Farmers recruit, I was told ridiculous lies about the amount of money I could make and how quickly I could make it. I was also told I only needed about $5k to invest in the business before it would start paying off for me. Further, I specifically asked about telemarketing as I knew in the past that Farmers required 1200 telemarketed x-dates as a requirement to get Career status.

I was told that was old school and that Farmers had marketing programs that would work to help me and that I wouldn't have to telemarket to be successful. Well, $15k of marketing later, I have less than 100 policies. And, my DM is now saying that an agent can't be successful without telemarketing. It's all such a load. There are not any new successful Career agents in the district. Some who got in while the real estate boom was going on coupled with much lower rates are doing okay. Not great, but okay. But the ones like me that came later are either washing out or are at the least off subsidy.

So Farmers in its inifinite brilliance has upped the requirements to go and stay on Career subsidy to 40 p&c and 4 life every quarter. This a 33% increase from a year or so ago when it was 30 & 3, which was also a step up from another program that was yet easier. I get it that FIG wants strong agents, but they have made it so hard at a time when their marketing programs are failing and rates are rising, that it's nearly impossible to succeeed. I strongly advise anyone thinking about becoming an agent to reconsider thei career choices.

To make matters worse, the latitude for DMs to give policies to new agents is restricted. So they can't help someone with promise who needs a leg up to get started. And, the value of the new policies is also restricted. Either hit pretty high PIF and life sales growth, or lose the chance to get the policies in your 3 code forever! Ask most established agents, they will tell you that the gift of policies from their DM made a huge difference in the success of their agency in the early going.

I think what Farmers is doing to recruit new agents is near criminal. They will take nearly anyone who has the money to take the licensing and pass the tests. I can see many recruits who I know have ZERO chance of being successful, yet the DM brings them in. Why not? They get to keep the 30-50 policies these bust out reserve agents bring in and spend very little to acquire them.

I'm wondering if there is merit in a class action suit against Farmers from the reserve and career agents who never come close to having a real chance to reach the fantasy income promised when they were recruited.