Thread regarding State Farm Insurance layoffs

We..my husband and I were State Farm Agents in the late 70's 80's and 90's. We saw massive changes in the attitude towards agency. Agents were lied to from the time they started as trainees. As a female hired along with many other female agents I can tell you that were just hired to satisfy the lawsuit State Farm lost. We were not treated as our male comments and in many cases were never treated as equals. As a result many female agents simply gave up and quit not just State Farm but the insurance industry. We also saw a shift in how corporate viewed their 'agency partners' with new contracts coming out that greatly limited the earning potential for agents. Many agents felt 'stuck' with the company because the brokering of business was never permitted under the contract system. In the last few years I have seen new State Farm agents set up shop and then in a year or so close up shop because they simply can't make it. So when the regional office employees feel cheated and betrayed by another set of State Farm Corporate lies I hear you. The insurance industry is still a rewarding one to be part of if you do your research and then make an informed decision.

Every change is hard and every change will have winners and losers! I am sorry for folks that will be let go or will have to leave, but business is business and SF needs to evolve in order to survive. We cannot continue to bleed money in areas where we do not have to bleed money, that's my two cents here. And, if I was to be let go, I'd accept it and I'd move on.

@2hfr - such a well articulated post, factual and 100% aligned with what my experience was.

the problem here is that people who have no experience or insight into what happened are chiming in with things that are off or just factually incorrect.

again, thanks @2hfr

"This has been the plan since 2011. People have known that State Farm I'll be in 3 hubs and Bloomington for 6 years."

Again, this is false. In October of 2013 there was a massive series of conference calls which discussed the future. I was in on many of them. Yes, there was conversation surrounding huge growth to Phoenix, Dallas, and Atlanta. Yes, at that time they indicated that a certain few very small claims offices would likely close quickly (and they did).

In no way, shape or form was there any discussion or even insinuation that any of the most recent 11 announced office closures would occur. The 4,200 people that are now affected were given new model positions and migrated from their old legacy zones from 2013 through early 2016. Yes, some folks left in legacy knew their fate back in 2013, but those who migrated to new model were told over and over that they were safe and offices were growing. Those 4,200 affected are new model, not legacy. That's an important distinction.

Did corporate know back in 2011 that these newly announces closings would occur? I'm not sure, but would assume they did. What I do know is that your assumption that 4,200 people knew their fate 6 years ago is flat out incorrect. People did not know. They were not offered relocation as the OP of this thread stated. They were not notified of anything back in October 2013. They were, however, lied to many times over.

Know your facts before commenting.

I dont think it was the fact that our office is closing so much as we were told we were a long term location, now we find our we are closing less than a year after the previously non-named locations?? WTH? Lies. Its CEO Tipsord running things like a stock company. It will not be transparent to customers. It can't be when the new adjusters aren't trained enough to handle the claims.

This has been the plan since 2011. People have known that State Farm I'll be in 3 hubs and Bloomington for 6 years.

🙌🏼 Amen. Comments are not needed if you have NO idea what you are talking about!!

I am so sick of self-rigthteous agents like @NdzZwBJ who think they know what's going on, but in fact, all what they care about is $ and could care less about SF and it's employees.

THE FACT IS - WE WERE BLINDSIDED and we were led to believe that all is good and rosy... Betrayed, indeed!

Well said!!!! Blindsided is perfect description.

@1ilv - AMEN

Hogwash. You work in Florida, yet are here telling us what we did and didn't know about office closings around the country?

I worked at one of the 11 offices that are closing (and thankfully moved on before the announcement). Employees in my office were lied to over and over again. We were told it was a "grow facility". We were given jobs, just to have them taken away through reassignment (demotion). People were absolutely, positively blindsided by this in many places.

Of the 11 offices closing, during my time at SF, I traveled regularly to 6 of them. I'd say I had a pretty solid pulse on the situation. People had no reason to believe, until recently, that they would lose their job.

Out of curiosity, how many of these offices have you been to? How many of the affected leaders and employees have you spoken with over the last three years?