HEARD ON THE BEAT / BUZZ FROM THE BUSINESS WORLD
Farmers’ New Yields: Farmers Insurance Group became the nation’s third-largest auto and home insurer while ignoring the East Coast. But that’s beginning to change.
Farmers, which was founded in Los Angeles in 1928, expanded over the years to about 30 Western and Midwest states. Britain’s BAT Industries bought the carrier in 1988 and last year merged its financial-services unit, which included Farmers, with Switzerland’s Zurich Insurance to create Zurich Financial Services Group.
Suddenly, Farmers’ West Coast bias seemed, well, provincial. On Monday, the company began atoning for its geographical bias by starting operations in Maryland and Pennsylvania, with 10 more Eastern and Southern states to follow. Farmers will launch its operations relying on the client base of former Zurich Personal Insurance, which has 200,000 customers and 400 agents in the East and South.
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