History
State Farm was founded in 1922 by retired farmer George J. Mecherle as a mutual automobile insurance company owned by its policyholders. The firm originally specialized in auto insurance for farmers. The company later expanded its services into other types of insurance, such as homeowners and life insurance, in addition to banking and financial services.
State Farm's jingle ("Like a good neighbor, State Farm is there") was written by American songwriter Barry Manilow in 1971. A cover was released by Weezer in 2011.
As of December 2008 State Farm had 67,000 employees and 17,000 agents. March 2009 figures show the group servicing 77 million policies in the United States and Canada, of which over 40,000,000 are for automobiles, and more than 2 million bank accounts.
Edward B. Rust, Jr. is the current chairman and CEO of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company, as well as president and chief executive officer of State Farm Fire and Casualty Company, State Farm Life Insurance Company, and other principal State Farm affiliates.
On March 1, 2007, State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Company announced it will pay $1.25 billion in dividends to its mutual auto insurance policyholders in 46 states, the District of Columbia and the Canadian province of New Brunswick.
Read more about this topic: State Farm Insurance
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Social history might be defined negatively as the history of a people with the politics left out.”
—G.M. (George Macaulay)
“The only history is a mere question of one’s struggle inside oneself. But that is the joy of it. One need neither discover Americas nor conquer nations, and yet one has as great a work as Columbus or Alexander, to do.”
—D.H. (David Herbert)
“When the landscape buckles and jerks around, when a dust column of debris rises from the collapse of a block of buildings on bodies that could have been your own, when the staves of history fall awry and the barrel of time bursts apart, some turn to prayer, some to poetry: words in the memory, a stained book carried close to the body, the notebook scribbled by hand—a center of gravity.”
—Adrienne Rich (b. 1929)