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Like a Good Neighbor? Only if You Never File a Claim

In 1921 a man named George J. Mecherle, a former farmer who sacrificed his love of that profession to care for his ailing wife was selling insurance at a small firm in Bloomington, Indiana. Being an honest man, Mecherle enjoyed his work but was bothered by the fact that farmers were paying the same amount for their auto insurance coverage despite that fact that they were consistently lower in the number of claims paid out than that of non-farmers.

When Mecherle approached his employer with an idea for a better way to market insurance, his employer scoffed at the idea and suggested that maybe he should open his own insurance company if he thought he could do better.

And so in 1922, that was to be the beginning of what is now known as State Farm Insurance, a company with innovative visions that helped to take the insurance industry to what it is today, with its groundbreaking ideas of safe-driver discounts and low-risk rates.

With nearly 75 million policies in both Canada and the United States, State Farm now insures auto, home, life and health policies and is in the top 25 of Fortune 500 companies employing over 68,000 people. According to their website "The highly principled mission, vision and values of State Farm today are still those of George J Mecherle".

I'll be honest with you; I've never held insurance companies in high regard. Maybe that's because I've never really had to deal with them much other than writing checks to them and never seeing anything in return. One time a lady backed into my car in a parking lot; several days later I gave her an estimate from a body shop for the cost of the repair and three weeks after that I got a check from her insurance company. I was glad she had insurance.

I don't know many insurance people, but I do know farmers and right off hand I can't think of many dishonest farmers. So I can't help thinking that someone who was a farmer, who had the insight that George J. Mecherle had when he founded State Farm Insurance Company, would ever condone some of the policies and actions that the company he founded has implemented in the last few years.

After the August 29, 2005 hurricane known as Katrina ravaged areas in the Gulf Coast, State Farm and other insurance companies systematically refused to pay thousands of its policyholders and the more than $2 billion dollars they owe, claiming flood damage was not part of their coverage and therefore excluded them from receiving compensation

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