Quoted from the Insurance Journal message board

I am an ex-Farmers agent. In general, Farmers does have a good priduct. I would not, however call it the best. There are a lot of things that they can't offer. As an Insurance Company they are not bad for underwtriting or service. The down-side is that you have to work with their "SALES DEPARTMENT".

My District MANGLER gave me NO good support a lot of mis-information and a lot of WRONG and DANGEROUS product information. They also tend to throw agents up against the wall like dirt to see how many of them stick. The Divisional Agency, Divisional Sales and Regional Sales managers also LIED about a number of things when I was apopointed. Looking in from the outside, this does not sem to have changed. The sales department people are all trying to climb the PROMOTION ladder to see how high they can climb and don't care who they step on or lie to to get as high as they can.

When I was hired in 1982, one agent had announced her intention to retire in a 'few' years. The district MANGLER hird four agents to replace her. Of those four, I am the only one still in the industry. One of the agents left town in the dark of night, one made it for three years, the companies and I 'agreed to disagree' after seven years and the fourth agent made it for about nine years before taking up drinking full time.

Since that time (1982) they have hired over 40 agents to maintain the four agencies they had in this marketing area. They recently had an agent retire and they hired three to replace him. We'll see how many of those stick.

I am not working for Farmers now but am independent and working on both sides of Farmers. They were purchased from BATUS (British American Tobacco U.S. - R J Reynolds), who bought them in 1986, then by Zurich about five years ago and they, Farmers, purchased Foremost as a wholly owned subsidiary, about three years ago. I am appointed with both Zurich and Foremost and have been for years.

If you are thinking about becoming captive I would recommend State Farm if you can find an area that they are willing to appoint a scratch agency. Country Companies and American Family have had difficulty making agents stick (successful) in this area but that may not be true everywhere. They do appear to have a good product.