| Topic Name: |
agency |
| Message Name: |
Better Check Fortune Ranking |
| Date Posted: |
02/21/2006 |
| In Reply To: |
I read the negative postings about State Farm but decided not to ignore this career track but rather discuss the opportunity with existing agents. I focused on agents with 1-10 years experience as agents devoting attention to those working under the new contract which I believe is 2 years old. I did not hear any negative comments about the agency career or about State Farm as a company. In fact I found people who loved the job but felt frustrated at the difficulty of having the enormous responsbility for developing and managing their business. All of those comments seemed within the realm of normal business to me. I am curious to hear from more people about becoming a State Farm agent. I'm going through the application process and haven't found a business opportunity that I'm more excited about than this one. I passed the screening test and now am filling out the balance sheet and essay part of the application. |
| Message: |
Here is State Farm's industry ranking.
http://money.cnn.com/magazines/fortune/mostadmired/snapshots/1270.html
State Farm nearly got the lowest score of 9 for innovation. I'd be looking at Progressive or Allstate which rank higher and even higher is Berkshire-Hathaway.
Having knowledge about their IT systems area I would say State Farm lags considerably behind their competitors for providing software products for their agents.
You do what ever you want to but you had better keep in mind the changing economic conditions in this country. SF to me lives in a glass bubble and only see what they want to see as in they don't understand the downward spiral of income in the U.S. and people will not continue to pay a premium price for insurance like SF thinks they will. You ever wonder why Geico and Progressive continue to grow at their present rates? Get a clue! Compare the number of SF employees per policy to what the competitors have too. Did you investigate the turnover rate of SF agents too? I hear (nothing negative toward you) that SF is under pressure to replace a large number of retiring agents and it almost sounds like they are getting desperate because they can't find enough people to replace them. Kind of gives you a clue what their management is like doesn't it.
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