Farmers Insurance Group

Farmers Insurance Group (informally Farmers) is a U.S. insurer group of automobiles, homes and small businesses and also provides other insurance and financial services products. Farmers Insurance has more than 50,000 exclusive and independent agents and approximately 22,000 employees.

History

1922 to 2000

Farmers' future co-founders John C. Tyler and Thomas E. Leavey first met after Tyler moved to California. Tyler and Leavey had both grown up with rural backgrounds and believed that farmers and ranchers, who had better driving rates than urbanites, deserved lower insurance premiums. During the 1920s, farmers across the United States were establishing their own mutual insurance firms and cooperatives in order to have less expensive policies. Tyler, the son of South Dakotan insurance salesman, and Leavey, who had formerly worked for the Federal Farm Loan Bureau and the National Farm Loan Association, recognized that these farmers, ranchers, and other rural drivers were an overlooked market and wished to create their own auto insurance firm.