Talk:American Family Insurance

Main emphasis note that was removed
Whoever the sock was that made the edit I just reverted may be confusing AmFam with AFLAC or some other company. By far and away the core business of AmFam is Private Passenger Auto insurance (Personal Lines) - this makes up well over half of the companies annual revenue as based on the last corporate report (2006). Personal Property (home) is second, and all other lines are a distant third. To the untrained eye - the amount of "life insurance in force" as stated in the corporate reports exceed the revenue anmounts by a factor of 2 - but that is just a benchmark used to compare life insurance companies, and has very little to do with actual revenue gained by selling life insurance policies. I notice that the sock is registered to southern bell in texas - AmFam does not sell any insurance in texas, and it's likely they are confusing AmFam with someone else. Timmccloud 23:15, 20 June 2007 (UTC)

Criticisim Section
Dear 24.209.134.25, it should be noted that this is an encyclopedia, not a collection of blog entries, and the edits you have made in the criticisim section are not supported by anything other than heresay on websites that either a) don't control the postings they make, or b) have a vested interest (insuranceusa.com) in selling competing insurance against American Family. These are not reliable sources per the wikipedia guidelines of Reliable Sources. I'm going to leave them in for now, but don't be surprised if they are removed by myself or someone else at a later date.

As for now, I'm simply marking your edit with a [Template:Unreliablesources] notation. Timmccloud 23:21, 19 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Note: this is an encyclopeda - not a web log to vent your frustrations. Criticism is healthy and expected BUT it must conform to WP:NPOV or it will be removed. Timmccloud 13:52, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * Ok folks, enough is enough. Wikpedai administrators have been warned about your edits. Timmccloud 20:10, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * An IP sock that traces back to American Family has removed the criticism section. Since the [Template:Unreliablesources] was not contested for 3 weeks, I will leave the edit as it stands, HOWEVER editing articles from anonomous ip addresses that trace back to the subject of the article is frowned upon, if not bordering on the unethical. Please keep this in mind, future edits may be reverted.  Timmccloud 18:34, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Needs a logo
The logo got a speedy - will try to upload another one with the proper tags. Timmccloud 13:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Fixed, with appropriate tags on the images page . Timmccloud 15:02, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

General comment
The edit-warring that has taken place on this article in the past day or two is not acceptable. This article, like all Wikipedia articles, needs to be presented from a neutral point of view, neither promoting nor disparaging the subject company. Please also note that analogous to our biographies of living persons policy, controversial or negative comments must be supported by reliable sources to be included. Please take any disagreements to this talk page for discussion and hopefully arrive at a consensus on what material should be used. If problems persist, an administrator might have to protect this page or block seriously offending users. I hope this will not become necessary. Newyorkbrad 20:13, 21 September 2007 (UTC)
 * Thank you Brad! I have removed all of the material that doesn't meet Wikipedia's neutral point of view policy, and left in the criticism that does meet the neutral point of view.  I have also corrected all of the redirection links to the correct sites, and I have left in the reliable sources tag for the criticism that seems to have a neutral point of view but is supported only by blog entries.  Thanks for your help! Timmccloud 21:33, 21 September 2007 (UTC)


 * I've taken a look, in response to continuing problems, and a request for additional attention. Discussion of individual experiences is in general not encyclopedic content, and consumer complaint blogs are not RSs. I have left in a general statement and reference to two relatively responsible sites among those given, but I am not sure of them either. If someone can find BBB or the like, it might do better.
 * While here, I removed some PR puffery about their donations. Again, I'm not sure I removed enough. I repeat NYB's warning that the reinsertion of unsupported negative content will be cause for protection and possibly a block, as will be the reinsertion of advertising. DGG (talk) 01:35, 22 September 2007 (UTC)

AM Best
If a page like this is here to provide neutral, valuable information, and dozens of you have written here, why is the AM Best rating information not included. I went to Best and got it. How long will it last? The elephant in the living room now is any potential effect of the financial crisis on AmFam. Anybody care to provide solid info about that? Is AmFam better off than AIG? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.230.17.54 (talk) 17:50, 18 October 2008 (UTC)


 * Welcome again AmFam IPSock! The AM Best rating information for AmFam is behind a password protected page on the AM Best website, if you know of a public area on that website, or a neutral website with that information such as a newspaper, etc as per WP:VERIFY, please feel free to restore your edit with references. Please look at the article to see how references are done, and/or I urge you to learn more about wikipedia markup. As far as the AmFam vs. AIG thing is concerned, you are really talking about current events, not encyclopedic content.  We have a sister website - wikinews where that type of topical, current day information is very much welcomed. It might comfort you to know that AmFam's top executives recently had a briefing on this subject, and 85% or more of their equity is in government backed bonds, so they are not exposed to AIG like problems as a result.  Until this information becomes posted publicly on verifiable, neutral forum however, it doesn't belong in the article. Finally, please sign your edits on the talk pages with ~ .  Thanks!  Timmccloud (talk) 00:52, 19 October 2008 (UTC)

External links modified
Hello fellow Wikipedians,

I have just modified 5 one external links on American Family Insurance. Please take a moment to review my edit. If you have any questions, or need the bot to ignore the links, or the page altogether, please visit this simple FaQ for additional information. I made the following changes:
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20141218103348/http://www.biztimes.com/article/20110209/ENEWSLETTERS03/302099974 to http://www.biztimes.com/article/20110209/ENEWSLETTERS03/302099974
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20090824061736/http://www.amfam.com:80/pdf/company/Amfam_2008AR.pdf to http://www.amfam.com/pdf/company/Amfam_2008AR.pdf
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20070906042441/http://www.uwhealth.org:80/page.asp?contentid=10260 to http://www.uwhealth.org/page.asp?contentid=10260
 * Added tag to http://www.uwaydelaware.org/the.display.cfm?VaultID=140&sitelocationid=4&whereami=What's%20New&thetrigger=
 * Replaced archive link https://web.archive.org/web/20071118215750/http://www.uwozarks.com/news_update_45.asp with https://web.archive.org/web/20071118215750/http://www.uwozarks.com/news_update_45.asp on http://www.uwozarks.com/news_update_45.asp
 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/web/20091225094527/http://www.amfam.com/default.asp to http://www.amfam.com/default.asp

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Number of Employees Suggestion
The page list AmFam as having 16,000 employees.

Two sources are showing around 11,000 employees:


 * American Family reports 10,900 total "employees", with 2,800 Agents (independent contractor) and that they employ about 8,100 people in "professional areas".
 * Fortune Magazine for the Fortune 500 reports 11,307 employees.

Perhaps a savvier researcher can identify how many contractors, beyond agents, AmFam uses and if 16,000 is including contractors. Unless someone is able to supply a reliable source of information on the 16,000 employees. I would propose lowering the employee count to 11,000-ish. Preston A. Vickrey (humbly) (talk) 15:13, 13 September 2018 (UTC)


 * I worked as an employee at AmFam for 17 years, and I can state that during that time the employee count remained in the 10-11k mark consistently This is because they use an internal statistic called PPE (Polices per employee) and try to keep that ratio at a constant level.  Nobody will ever be able to publish an accurate number of contractors, as that varies almost daily. In 17 years the contractor count (90% in I/S) would go from a low of 2000 to a high of 6000 depending on the projects and legislative needs of AmFam's in house software.  That 16k figure absolutely counts contractors, and by definition they are not employees.
 * With that in mind the number absolutely needs to be changed. I personally would use the AmFam reported count of Employees; the fortune 500 number is just a snapshot of the company on the day the F500 stats were collected, and the amfam number would be an overall average for the year based on their PPE ratio. Having stated that, there is an argument for not using primary sources (the AmFam number), and using the published one (F500).  I will change it and footnote it to the AmFam number; I will not contest if someone overrules me and uses the F500 number. Timmccloud (talk) 15:39, 14 September 2018 (UTC)

Newly added ambassador section
The listed citation is only for John Legend. 4 other ambassadors are listed here, without any evidence or references. This will be hard to do without using Primary Sources, but if it can be done, it should be done. And since these are living persons, we must be extremely careful in our citations and references to them. If it can't be done, this section should have the list removed, or eliminated entirely. Timmccloud (talk) 16:18, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

citation needed in lead here
"It should not be confused with American Family Home Insurance Company, a subsidiary of Munich Re subsidiary American Modern Insurance Group, Inc., or American Family Life Assurance Company of Columbus." ?? Sucker for All (talk) 21:13, 15 September 2021 (UTC)
 * Sounds like an ad for other things. It similar to Lincoln Financial and Pacific Life or Prudential? Anyone else here understand life insurance? Sucker for All (talk) 21:15, 15 September 2021 (UTC)