““Our leaner structure will make us more nimble and better able to pursue opportunities for growth and ultimately make Farmers more responsive to the needs of our insured customers and agents,” said Vargas.”
That’s not how customer support and agent services work. Leaner structures (code for running skeleton crews) mean longer wait times, the inability to respond to upticks in service needs, and overburdening employees.
Why incur “office expenses” when working from home negates the need for an office.
Farmers started ‘getting rid”of people nearly 5 yrs ago. Making insureds utilize phone apps to measure their houses instead of receiving an onsite visit from a field adjuster. Lack of Customer Service; which they constantly put in front of employees as reasons for no pay increase, etc.
Sounds more like Farmers is just in trouble or just greedy
Sorry to hear this. California Insurance Department’s moratorium on rate changes from March 2020 (beginning of pandemic) until the commissioner was re-elected last November, making insurance prices inadequate, is a big reason for this. California is Farmers’ bread and butter. Only writing 7000 new homeowners policies a month has to hurt the bottom line big time and CDI is being stubborn about rate increases. Inflation affects insurance like everything else. But CDI doesn’t see it that way.
Another sad day for Farmers Insurance. Raul Vargas has gutted department after department and he is the one who dissolved the industry leading political action committees in the respective states that defended the interests of Farmers agents, employees and customers. When the Farmers owners in Zurich sent him to America to run Farmers, I wonder if they thought he would run it into the ground. Sad…
incorrect on Vargas (in part) previous CEO took the company from THIRD in the nation to ummm TENTH. Vargas will just continue this trend. People look up their annual report online-it is easy to find. 3 BILLION sent to zurich each year. But hey, they have no $
I just retired from Farmers after a 20 year career, this month!
The writing has been on the wall with commission cut after commission cut.
Then firing all the state life reps, financial reps.
Paying ungodly fees for security registrations-FFS service fees to cover their overhead
The OSJ turned off their fax machines so we were emailing docs with all kinds of personal info that could be compromised.
agents transitioned to chat after the phone hold times could be an hour.
Then chat was multi hour.
I am going to say they are laying off employees because they aren’t writing new business….
Then their underwriting-so many risks were declined.
The Business Unit-we used to have access to underwriters-that was turned off in the last few years.
Raul-the new 2023 CEO-who was silent most of the year…
I’m glad I sold out-feel bad for the agent who bought.
Fewer employees will lead to slower customer service. Insurers and many other companies think phone banks and AI will save the day, but people grow tired and frustrated at being on hold for hours. If the cuts are in claims, the impact will be quick…poor claim adjusting, long waits for settlement, disgruntled customers leaving for companies that understand what the words customer service mean. And, the bad faith claims as remaining claims staff are overwhelmed.
While Farmers has been downsizing staff counts and service for years, they will eventually reach the point where running an insurer and trying to please the stock markets will become impossible. And then it will be over…
2400 employees are being let go to save costs. Makes me wonder how much of a pay cut Vargas and his other C-Level execs took for themselves to save pay costs.
Seems like the insurance industry is going through pricing/service reassessment the way banks did decades ago. First the pencil pushers look at the share price and quarterly earnings, and they decide to raise rates and push out their low ROI clients, and reduce service. Before you know it, they will be adding back service for their high ROI clients and leaving the lowest margin customers to be served only by apps. In 10 years or so, a new company will bring back agents and personal consultation for fee, and that will seem like a new way of doing business.
I retired after 35 years at Farmers working in claims. Zurich Financial (parent company) is the worst thing that has ever happened to Farmers. Farmers became their cash cow for years being the only entity within Zurich that made money but they have successfully run it into the ground like the rest of their companies. Claims departments were extremely overworked. The last person you want overworked is the person with your checkbook. So many stupid decisions came down like trying to have the customer measure and photo their own damages and then during Covid just letting contractors decide what was damaged and what to charge.
““Our leaner structure will make us more nimble and better able to pursue opportunities for growth and ultimately make Farmers more responsive to the needs of our insured customers and agents,” said Vargas.”
That’s not how customer support and agent services work. Leaner structures (code for running skeleton crews) mean longer wait times, the inability to respond to upticks in service needs, and overburdening employees.
In the meantime, Farmers will continue to employ hollywood actors and professional golfers to promote their products.
I’m certain that another round of renewal commission cuts will follow those non-renewed policies.
But sell that life insurance!
Why incur “office expenses” when working from home negates the need for an office.
Farmers started ‘getting rid”of people nearly 5 yrs ago. Making insureds utilize phone apps to measure their houses instead of receiving an onsite visit from a field adjuster. Lack of Customer Service; which they constantly put in front of employees as reasons for no pay increase, etc.
Sounds more like Farmers is just in trouble or just greedy
Sorry to hear this. California Insurance Department’s moratorium on rate changes from March 2020 (beginning of pandemic) until the commissioner was re-elected last November, making insurance prices inadequate, is a big reason for this. California is Farmers’ bread and butter. Only writing 7000 new homeowners policies a month has to hurt the bottom line big time and CDI is being stubborn about rate increases. Inflation affects insurance like everything else. But CDI doesn’t see it that way.
Another sad day for Farmers Insurance. Raul Vargas has gutted department after department and he is the one who dissolved the industry leading political action committees in the respective states that defended the interests of Farmers agents, employees and customers. When the Farmers owners in Zurich sent him to America to run Farmers, I wonder if they thought he would run it into the ground. Sad…
incorrect on Vargas (in part) previous CEO took the company from THIRD in the nation to ummm TENTH. Vargas will just continue this trend. People look up their annual report online-it is easy to find. 3 BILLION sent to zurich each year. But hey, they have no $
I just retired from Farmers after a 20 year career, this month!
The writing has been on the wall with commission cut after commission cut.
Then firing all the state life reps, financial reps.
Paying ungodly fees for security registrations-FFS service fees to cover their overhead
The OSJ turned off their fax machines so we were emailing docs with all kinds of personal info that could be compromised.
agents transitioned to chat after the phone hold times could be an hour.
Then chat was multi hour.
I am going to say they are laying off employees because they aren’t writing new business….
Then their underwriting-so many risks were declined.
The Business Unit-we used to have access to underwriters-that was turned off in the last few years.
Raul-the new 2023 CEO-who was silent most of the year…
I’m glad I sold out-feel bad for the agent who bought.
So sorry for everyone impacted. Does anyone happen to know what areas were impacted?
Fewer employees will lead to slower customer service. Insurers and many other companies think phone banks and AI will save the day, but people grow tired and frustrated at being on hold for hours. If the cuts are in claims, the impact will be quick…poor claim adjusting, long waits for settlement, disgruntled customers leaving for companies that understand what the words customer service mean. And, the bad faith claims as remaining claims staff are overwhelmed.
While Farmers has been downsizing staff counts and service for years, they will eventually reach the point where running an insurer and trying to please the stock markets will become impossible. And then it will be over…
2400 employees are being let go to save costs. Makes me wonder how much of a pay cut Vargas and his other C-Level execs took for themselves to save pay costs.
Seems like the insurance industry is going through pricing/service reassessment the way banks did decades ago. First the pencil pushers look at the share price and quarterly earnings, and they decide to raise rates and push out their low ROI clients, and reduce service. Before you know it, they will be adding back service for their high ROI clients and leaving the lowest margin customers to be served only by apps. In 10 years or so, a new company will bring back agents and personal consultation for fee, and that will seem like a new way of doing business.
I retired after 35 years at Farmers working in claims. Zurich Financial (parent company) is the worst thing that has ever happened to Farmers. Farmers became their cash cow for years being the only entity within Zurich that made money but they have successfully run it into the ground like the rest of their companies. Claims departments were extremely overworked. The last person you want overworked is the person with your checkbook. So many stupid decisions came down like trying to have the customer measure and photo their own damages and then during Covid just letting contractors decide what was damaged and what to charge.