Like A Good Neighbor, State Farm Is There

At State Farm, we’re people who make it our business to be like a good neighbor.

Over the years State Farm’s had a lot of slogans…

In 1969, Hurricane Camille hit in Galveston, Texas. A lot of companies were having problems paying claims and so on, and Jack Anderson did an article about what a great job State Farm was doing compared to most other insurance companies and he referred to it as, luckier neighbors had State Farm mutual insurance.

And…in 1971 we came up with, “Like a Good Neighbor, State Farm is There” and it’s been our slogan ever since.

It’s not just a slogan or it’s not just a marketing strategy, it’s truly the way we as an organization live our lives, and we expect our employees to follow through on that.

I was working for another company…And we had a huge hailstorm in Bozeman, Montana, and I was a single claim rep working in that area.

I watched State Farm rent the fairgrounds, bring in a catastrophe team…I watched a team of property claim reps come in and go out throughout the town and help State Farm’s customers. And as I was watching how State Farm was doing business and I was watching how I was doing business, I said I’m with the wrong company. I came to this company because of the culture that I saw and the manner in which State Farm took care of customers, like a good neighbor…

You have to recognize that things have changed. But the core of your culture doesn’t change. And one word that really relates to that core is integrity.

Ed Rust Sr. once said there are no degrees of integrity. You either have it or you don’t.

And what is integrity but how people think about life, think about their responsibilities. Be it a mutual company, a stock, a reciprocal - those are just structures. What makes the structure strong happens to be the people within it.

The very nature of State Farm’s business - to help others - attracts people who share that same passion.

Ten of us came over in 1979. We didn’t want to be part of Communistic Viet Nam.…So, I kind of want to give back to my people…I care about people. I like taking care of people.

…every time I talked to somebody on the phone I was thinking about my own parents. So what would I do to explain this to my mom or dad?

Part of our service is literally listening. And that listening could be not just for them trying to acquire information, but they want to just get something off their shoulders.

My family asks me the same question every single night, how many people did you help today? They have never said how many things did you sell today?

…Being There. A simple business philosophy set by company founder G.J. Mecherle decades ago. He’d be proud to know that his company - with thousands of employees across the U.S. and Canada - actively support that same philosophy today.

They’re neighbors that understand what quality of life is all about. And it’s not just a balance sheet and an operating statement – it’s a partnership with your neighbors.

It’s people to people. And State Farm’s been pretty doggone good about selecting the people that they want to put their name by.