Farmers Insurance reducing staff by 2,400 in layoffs
Florida Chief Financial Officer Jimmy Patronis says communication and negotiations have been met with ‘atrocious’ effort from Farmers Insurance, which halted policies in the high-risk hurricane state this week.
Farmers Insurance has revealed it will shed numerous employees through layoffs.
Under the move announced Monday by the insurance provider, roughly 2,400 Farmers Insurance workers will see their jobs cut. Of its total headcount, the impacted employees account for roughly 11%, according to the company’s press release.
Farmers Insurance said it needed to “better position itself for a future of long-term profitability and growth,” prompting the layoffs. Other actions the company is taking include making its organizational structure more efficient and bringing a “new approach to how it delivers insurance products” to agents and consumers, the release said.
Close-up of logo for Farmer’s Insurance company on paper on a light wooden background, September 10, 2019. (Smith Collection/Gado/Getty Images / Getty Images)
The job cuts were also linked to what Farmers Group CEO Raul Vargas called the “existing conditions of the insurance industry and the impact they are having on our business.”
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They come after the insurance provider decided earlier in the summer to no longer do Farmers-branded auto, home and umbrella policies in Florida and curb some of its coverage in California. For Florida, the company described the move at the time as one “necessary to effectively manage risk exposure.”
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Farmers Insurance isn’t the only one to take such action in California, as previously reported by FOX Business.
Vargas said Monday that Farmers Insurance was “committed to doing our best to support those impacted by these changes in the days and weeks to come.”
Hundreds of media industry staffers were laid off this week during a brutal period that saw Warner Bros. Discovery, Gannett and others slash headcount as economic uncertainty plagues news organizations. (Getty / Getty Images)
The roughly 2,400 people losing their jobs work “across all lines of business,” according to Farmers Insurance. On its website, the company reported having a workforce made up of nearly 21,000 people.
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It said it would “share additional details” regarding its effort to “reinvent how insurance is delivered.”
Farmers Insurance, which was founded in 1928, provides over 19 million individual policies nationwide, according to its website. Those belong to some 10 million households.
