THIEVERY IS NOT ACCEPTABLE 

Listen up, this is not acceptable behavior. Over and over again, UFAA is receiving the same complaint from district managers, company employees, members and non members and that is the thievery of existing policyholders. It is causing resentment and many agents are starting to believe that the company is condoning this type of behavior. Thievery is non productive and is certainly not the way to build a long term successful agency.  

District mangers are under tremendous financial and policy production pressure to ensure their new agents succeed. This in itself is not a bad incentive to become creative and think outside of the box. However, some district mangers have chosen to try a shortcut and therein lies part of the problem. 

New agents wanting to fast track to success are soliciting existing policyholders instead of new business. Instead of cold calling, purchasing leads or developing circles of influence the new agents are provided policyholder lists and they exclusively target these existing policyholders. Now one could argue that if there is unwritten business in a household, that it is fair game. But, that’s a different discussion for another day.  

What is happening is that agents are not necessarily writing new business. They are canceling existing policies and writing new business just to add a discount or change coverage. This serves a two fold purpose. It gives the agent new production count and it also allows them to escape paying the existing agent the standard one year agent transfer commission.  

This whole situation is problematic in that there really is no new business being written in these situations. This should be of interest to the management company. Primarily, because the existing policyholder is probably paying fewer premiums and thus the company loses. Secondly, the policyholder is being charged an unnecessary additional policy fee. Thirdly, the agents are stealing from each other and that type of unethical behavior can not be tolerated. Fourthly, the losing agents are becoming angry because they are not receiving satisfaction from their district managers when they discuss the situation. The agents are almost universally being told the new agents need the policies to make their quotas and stay on the program. 

On behalf of every Farmers agent, UFAA appeals to the management of Farmers to review this unacceptable behavior and issue a directive that this whole situation is counter productive behavior and needs to stop.  

Tom Schrader
United Farmers Agents Association
National President