State Farm Insurance Company by Brian Park

State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, with its headquarters at Bloomington in Illinois is a mutual insurance firm that also owns the other State Farm companies and is in turn owned by the State Farm Insurance Company, which is a group of insurance and financial services companies. State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company was founded on June 7, 1922, by George J. Mecherle, who was a retired farmer. The company initially concentrated on meeting auto insurance needs of farmers in Illinois through a mutual organization owned by the clients. Mecherle, the founder of the company, believed that farmers drive less than city drivers and hence should be allowed to pay less for insurance since the losses they had was fewer. The idea was accepted well by the farmer community and hence the popularity of the firm increased rapidly. In 1942, the company became the nation's largest auto insurer and from then on, the company has held on to that rank. According to statistics, about one out of every five cars on the road is insured with State Farm Automobile Insurance Company. Since then, State Farm has expanded its services into other popular types of insurance.
State Farm now has about 67,000 employees and 17,000 agents servicing 77 million policies in the United States and Canada, and have more than 1.9 million bank accounts served by their client base. State Farm is insuring about 40 million vehicles and the company announced last year that it will pay $1.25 billion in dividends to its mutual auto insurance policyholders. Edward B. Rust, Jr. is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, and president and chief executive officer of State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, State Farm Life Insurance Company, and other principal State Farm affiliates. Edward B. Rust, Jr. holds these positions since 1885, succeeding his late father Edward B. Rust, Sr. Mr.Rust is a graduate of Illinois Wesleyan University in Bloomington, and holds master of business degree from Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.
The company prescribes a "code of conduct" for its employees, which summarises the Company policies, rules, and guidelines. It helps the employees in decision making and to make the right choices. A strict "code of conduct" doesn't mean the employees are under any sort of strain because if we consider the awards and recognition, State Farm is a great place to work. State Farm was ranked among the "40 Best Companies for Diversity" and "15 Best in Marketing Diversity" in Black Enterprise Magazine's 2007 rankings. In 1986 the company had passed the 100$ billion mark, almost doubling the figure in five years. State Farm went online in 1895, thus joining the internet revolution. In 1999, the 70th anniversary of the Company was celebrated in a grand way as the agents wrote a total of 1 million life insurance applications that year. The Good Neighbour Grant Program was introduced by state Farm in 2000 and was a huge success. A facility to serve Canadian customers was opened in Toronto in 2006 and the same year promoted a feature film -- the Disney/Pixar animated feature film, CARS.