Farmers Insurance

Farmers Insurance Group needed to find a method to accelerate success for new agents within the company. To do so, Farmers Insurance Group recognized the need to create a new centralized university to improve the success rate of new agents. As independent franchisees, Farmers Insurance agents were operating ineffectively, lacking uniformity. In order to make sure that Farmers’ new agents could learn the skills for long-term success they needed to design an effective program to instill early habits, behaviors, and necessary discipline. Over the span of a year, The Bob Pike Group worked with Farmers Insurance Group to design the University training program. The Bob Pike Group designed the University to help new agents develop skills and set higher self-expectations earlier in their careers. The Bob Pike Group worked with Farmers Insurance Group to create a combination of Internet-based training courses and hands-on opportunities to address skills in sales, business planning, marketing systems, and advocacy. Upon completion of the University, new agents were armed with more skills and abilities to ensure their long-term success. When looking at the statistical impacts of the University, there was up to a 25% increase in monthly sales for new agents that had completed the new training program—a $10 million increase in gross premium company-wide. In addition, the University of Farmers won first place in Training Magazine’s top 125 training programs in both 2012 and 2013, just three years after designing the program with The Bob Pike Group.