Is Farmers a Good Insurance Company?

Before evaluating Farmers Insurance, one important clarification is necessary: there are two separate companies that appear in internet searches under the name “Farmers Life Insurance” and they are not related. Farmers New World Life Insurance Company — based in Bellevue, Washington and affiliated with Farmers Insurance Group — is the entity this review addresses. It holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating and is part of one of the largest insurance groups in the United States, with Zurich Insurance Group providing management services. The other “Farmers Life Insurance Company” is a small Tennessee-based credit life insurer with a B++ (Good) AM Best rating — a completely separate, unaffiliated company. If you encountered a B++ rating on a Farmers Life Insurance review, that is the Tennessee company, not Farmers Insurance Group. Farmers Insurance Group is the organization behind the nationally recognized Farmers brand — founded in 1928 in Los Angeles, serving more than 10 million households with 20+ million individual policies, with AM Best A (Excellent) affirmed August 2025. At Diversified Insurance Brokers, Jason Stolz, CLTC, CRPC, DIA, CAA, provides the context that matters for clients evaluating Farmers life insurance and financial products: the financial strength is solid, the product lineup is relevant, and the key limitations — New York unavailability, NAIC complaint patterns, and exclusive agent distribution — belong in the honest evaluation alongside the AM Best rating.

Company Snapshot

The “Two Farmers” Problem: Which One Were You Reading About?

The single most common source of confusion in Farmers Insurance research is the existence of a completely separate and unrelated company called Farmers Life Insurance Company — a small credit life and disability insurer founded in 1997 in Tennessee, with approximately $956 million in total assets and an AM Best B++ (Good) rating. This company has nothing to do with Farmers Insurance Group, the Farmers brand, or Farmers New World Life Insurance Company. But because both entities appear under “Farmers Life Insurance” in search results and annuity comparison tools, consumers researching Farmers Insurance frequently encounter B++ ratings that apply to the Tennessee credit life company — not to Farmers Insurance Group. If you read a review that cited B++ for Farmers Life Insurance, that review was about the Tennessee company. Farmers New World Life Insurance Company — the life insurance arm of the Farmers brand you know from auto, home, and business insurance — holds an AM Best A (Excellent) rating. When evaluating any insurance company, confirming the legal entity name and its specific AM Best rating number is essential. Our resource on what an AM Best rating means covers how to look up and verify ratings directly at ambest.com so you are always working with the correct entity’s credentials.

The Reciprocal Exchange Structure: What It Means That Zurich Manages But Doesn’t Own

Farmers Insurance Group operates through a structure that is unusual in US insurance and frequently misunderstood. The core entities — Farmers Insurance Exchange, Fire Insurance Exchange, and Truck Insurance Exchange — are reciprocal insurance exchanges, meaning they are owned by their policyholders, not by a corporate parent. Farmers Group, Inc. (a wholly owned subsidiary of Zurich Insurance Group) acts as the attorney-in-fact for these exchanges — managing their non-claims operations, issuing policies, collecting premiums, and paying agents in exchange for a management fee. In 2025, that fee was 13% of premium, including a 6.99% profit component. Zurich Insurance Group does not own the Farmers Exchanges — it manages them for a fee. This distinction matters for policyholders: the financial strength of the Farmers Exchanges is assessed on their own balance sheets, not Zurich’s. AM Best’s August 2025 affirmation of A (Excellent) for Farmers Insurance Group members reflects the exchanges’ own very strong risk-adjusted capitalization, stable loss reserves, and comprehensive reinsurance program — alongside the partial offsets of elevated catastrophe loss exposure and approximately $2 billion in surplus notes outstanding. For clients evaluating whether the Zurich management relationship provides additional financial backing, the honest answer is that Zurich provides operational management expertise and fees, but the policyholder protection flows from the exchanges’ own capital adequacy. For context on how other major P/C-oriented carriers structure their businesses, our resource on Is Liberty Mutual a Good Insurance Company covers another large mutual insurance structure for comparison.

Life Insurance: What Farmers New World Life Actually Offers

Farmers New World Life Insurance Company has over 100 years of operating history and offers a meaningful life insurance lineup through the Farmers agent network. The standard term product — Farmers Term — is available in 10, 15, 20, and 30-year terms with no medical exam required for most applicants seeking under $2 million in coverage. The age range extends to 75, and coverage amounts run from $50,000 to $10 million. The Return of Premium Term product adds a refund of 90% of paid premiums if the insured outlives the policy term — a meaningful feature for clients who want the protection value of term without permanently surrendering the premium cost if the coverage is never triggered. This product is available in 20 or 30-year terms for applicants ages 18 to 60. The Indexed Universal Life (IUL) product is available for applicants as young as 15 days and as old as 80 — one of the wider IUL age ranges in the market — with coverage amounts from $50,000 upward. For clients evaluating the no-exam term options, our resource on no-exam life insurance and no-exam life insurance for young adults cover the underwriting context across the broader no-exam market for comparison. For clients interested in the return-of-premium feature specifically, our resource on term life insurance with return of premium covers how this feature works and compares across carriers. For clients evaluating whether the waiver of premium rider matters for their specific situation, our resource on what waiver of premium for life insurance is covers this rider across the product landscape. For clients with specific health conditions evaluating life insurance options, our resources on the life settlement calculator and life settlements explained cover the secondary market for existing policies that clients evaluating any carrier should understand as a planning tool.

The NAIC Complaint Record and What It Means for Service

Financial strength and service quality are two different things, and Farmers Insurance does not score equally on both. AM Best A (Excellent) confirms Farmers’ ability to pay claims — that is what the rating measures. The NAIC complaint index for Farmers’ life insurance line in 2025 is reported as elevated — meaning the company receives more complaints relative to its market share than the average carrier. This pattern is consistent with what appears in consumer review platforms, where Farmers customers report frustrations with claims processing timelines, documentation requirements, and customer service responsiveness. These complaints are more concentrated in the claims processing and service interaction categories than in financial strength concerns. The honest framing: Farmers Insurance is a financially capable carrier that generates more service friction than the average. For clients who value claims support quality as much as financial strength — and for most individual life insurance policyholders, those are equally important — including service quality data alongside the AM Best rating in the carrier evaluation is the right approach. Working with an independent broker who remains your advocate after a policy is placed — and who can intervene with the carrier on your behalf when service issues arise — is particularly valuable when the carrier has above-average NAIC complaint patterns. For annuity and life insurance evaluation, our resource on getting a second opinion on your annuity quote covers the advocacy and comparison role that independent brokers provide across all carriers. For long-term care planning alongside life insurance — where service quality during claims is especially critical — our resource on the cost of long-term care by state calculator covers the protection planning that runs alongside life insurance decisions. For clients evaluating how IRMAA affects their retirement income planning alongside life insurance ownership, our resource on how modified adjusted gross income affects Social Security and Medicare covers the tax and benefit interaction relevant to high-income retirement planners. For fixed and variable annuity context for clients who have Farmers annuity products or are considering them, our resources on what a fixed annuity is and what a variable annuity is cover the foundational product context. For disability income planning alongside life insurance — particularly for professionals — our resources on disability income for truck drivers, disability insurance for chiropractors, and short-term disability cover occupational disability planning for client profiles that frequently carry Farmers auto, home, and life coverage.