Worst "opportunity" ever.

What can you say, it was an inordinately expensive way to make Farmers insurance a crap-load of money. I added it up, and I managed to put somewhere around $185,000 in Farmers' pocket, and they still sent me a bill for over $10,000 when I finally wised up, and closed my doors.

At the University (which they charge you for), they show you a video of some poor bastard, sitting at a desk, and someone drops a huge phone-book on his desk and says "here's your marketing leads". He then makes himself miserable by cold-calling a bunch of people that, understandably, don't want to waste time on a telemarketer. It's supposed to be humorous. Laugh all you want, if you decide to become a Farmers agent, the joke's on you. Once your natural market has dried up, you're as good as screwed. Think your good buddy, the district manager, is going to help you ?? You're an idiot if you believe that. The DM's job isn't to help you. His job is to recruit more dumbasses into this awful excuse for an opportunity. He'll sing any song he has to, in order to get you to sign up. But when you ask him for some business-saving advice, he'll suggest the same shitty ideas (from the corporate manual that hasn't been updated in about 20 years) that didn't work when he gave you the same shitty advice 6 months ago. The DM will tell you that you're an "agent", but the reality is not pretty. You'll amount to little more than annoying door-to-door vacuum salesman.

The commissions are a joke. You can (and will) work your ass off if you want to last more than a few months. Farmers has found a clever way to throw 100% of the expense, and basically impossible proposition of marketing on the agents, and STILL keep 75% to 80% of the money to itself. Do you remember the 100,000th car-insurance commercial you ever saw ?? Neither does anyone else. Marketing is your worst nightmare, and there is nobody anywhere that is willing to help you (unless you want to pay out the nose to people that employ marketing tactics that won't even pay for themselves). One of the agents in the DFW area will sell you a few hundred mailers at a thousand-bucks a run. Real team player, right ?? Ask him for some real advice, and he drops a phone book in front of you, and says "good luck!". I had two DMs, and they were both just as useless.

A big part of the pay-check is a loan. You have to pay it back. Think Farmers will be compassionate and understanding about your predicament, after padding their pocket with tens of thousands of dollars ?? No. You've got two weeks, then they send it to collections. It's one of the most inhumane and callous companies I've ever encountered. I would suggest someone to be an experimental parachute tester, rather than enter into this wildly one-sided contract. Sadly, it's such a huge company, their awful treatment of their agents will never stop. But if this message reaches one person, and opens their eyes up to the reality of this staggeringly awful company, it's absolutely worth writing this. I wouldn't wish owning a farmers agency on my worst enemy.

Lee - would you be willing to share what happened to your subsidy situation? I have yet to speak to someone that actually paid it. Thank you for your time.

Lee- sorry to hear about your experience. I unfortunately had the displeasure of working for Farmers for seven long years and as terrible as that all is, it is incredibly common. It is amazing that a company can actually run and survive the way Farmers does, but the outside world doesn't know the chaos and deceitfulness that lay within. The culture of the company encourages immoral behavior and often rewards it. All agents, whether new or senior, are treated like dogs and even referred to as such behind closed management doors. Terrible company all around and I hope people see these posts before making the terrible decision to work for them or even buy insurance from them.

10% p & c 50% for life. Commissions are a joke.

Lee, I just wanted to say that your post helped at least one person -- me. And I'm sure this forum saved me a lot of heartache and expense. I was contacted by a recruiter in my area who said I had applied for a position with Farmers. I don't remember doing that, but I have applied for a bunch of jobs lately. They scheduled an interview and talked about having several jobs open, including "producer," from what I remember hearing. I was sure it was a scam but thought I'd go to the interview anyway, just for practice. After finding this forum and your post I declined and hope to never hear from them again. Thank you all so much for providing this insight!