Our insurance products

The United States was pulled into a world conflict in 1941 and this lead to major changes in the auto industry, especially insurance. Automobile manufacturing ceased and citizens were unable to repair their cars because of rationing for the war effort.

In direct response to that, State Farm launched a major sales campaign, 'A Million or More by '44'. The idea was to obtain a million auto policies by 1944. We went from 350,000 policies in 1939 to 1.3 million in 1946.

On April 29, 1929, Morris Fuller sold the first life insurance policy to Founder and President of State Farm Mutual, G.J. Mecherle. A new adventure into life insurance for the company came seven years after our founding.

State Farm had been approached by the Agency Force about starting a life insurance company as early as 1925. Agents began to notice that as they were meeting a customer’s auto insurance needs, a life insurance agent was waiting down the drive for them to finish. Once done, the life agent would approach the same customer about a life policy, a product customers clearly wanted.

G.J. wanted to get the mutual company well-established before marketing other products. Having done so in the first few years, he felt the time was right to enter the life insurance market with State Farm. In 1929, State Farm started offering life insurance. The Life Company issued 2,000 policies in its first year.

Almost 100 years later and State Farm has one of the largest and most successful life companies in the industry. Iconic branding and stories of its first leader have entertained and inspired State Farm employees for generations.

The State Farm Fire Company started in 1935. Less than 10 years later the State Farm Fire Company began providing basic policies on dwellings to protect against fire, wind, hail, lightning, and theft. Customers had to purchase a separate policy for each peril. In 1956, State Farm designed a new, simplified product to cover all perils under one policy.

Today, it is known as a homeowners policy. In less than 10 years, State Farm Fire became the No. 1 homeowners insurance provider in the nation, and it remains No. 1 to this day.