Go ahead and boycott State Farm. Who cares? They don’t. Have you looked at the list of members? Almost every major insurance company is a member of this organization. GEICO, Liberty Mutual, Nationwide, Travelers, etc., etc... Where you going to go to? Have you seen the other members? GE, GM, ATT, Verizon, Texaco, J&J, P&G....? You'd have to live in a shack like Ted Kaczynski to live your life one day without supporting one of the organizations that participate in this. But I bet you will still talk on your cell phone and drive your car and clean your house and eat food from the supermarket. What a bunch of hypocrites. It’s all politics and you’re an idiot if you think otherwise.
I've been sitting on my hands thinking that State Farm would surely join ranks with other major corporations in cutting ties to ALEC. I just got off my hands and wrote an e-mail to my local State Farm agent. I told him how much I have appreciated doing business with his office, but that I cannot continue with State Farm if they don't cuts ties with ALEC. I don't know what good it will do, but it couldn't hurt!
David, State Farm is not a for-profit shareholder company. It is a mutual insurance company whose revenues (not technically "profits") are distributed back to its policy-holders, rather than to shareholders.
I'm curious though, if you are a State Farm policy holder, have you not received any of these dividends back?
I have started a petition calling on State Farm to pull out of ALEC. It can be found here: http://signon.org/sign/state-farm-stop-using
It is correct that State Farm is not a for-profit, investor-owned company. State Farm is a mutual benefit corporation, a kind of financial cooperative, and is owned by its policyholders. In other words, State Farm effectively pools money from its policyholder-owners in order to provide them with insurance services. Any excess revenue not used for that purpose, or used to add to the company's reserves, is -- or should be -- returned to its policyholders. Most years the policyholders receive a rebate in the form of a reduction in their premiums. It is a great model, but State Farm is abusing the relationship with its membership in ALEC.
So, basically, State Farm is taking money that rightfully belongs to its policyholder-owners and using it to support a ideological agenda. It would be just as wrong for State Farm to belong to an avowedly left-wing group (although personally I probably wouldn't object!). Its claim that it is merely working to promote legislation that benefits its "customers" (and we are not "customers") is belied by the fact that it has won awards from ALEC as "Best Private-Sector Company" and donated large amounts of money.
Please sign the petition!
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