American Family Insurance Company - American Family Insurance Company

In high school, five of us served a tour at the small town radio station. Most hours were spent half-asleep in front of a console, cueing commercials to play during late night ball games. As typical with small town radio stations, the commercials never changed, and certain songs, like the American Family Insurance jingle, became a part of our shared experience. Chassé-ing up the scale, we sang A-MER-i-can FAM-ily in-SUR-UR-ance in our sleep.

Towns like mine have long been the client base for American Family Insurance. Once upon a time, they were called Farmer’s Mutual, as the original founders wanted to sell car insurance to farmers who rarely drove their vehicles in the winter.

It all started in 1927. The Great Depression notwithstanding, they made their first million in eleven years. In the late fifties, Famer’s Mutual expanded their client base to include home and life insurance, and in 1963 renamed themselves American Family Insurance to better represent a growing number of products and customers; indeed, their customer base has grown to include nineteen different states:

American Family Insurance caters to two main American regions: the West and the Midwest. When asked what kind of people purchase AFI, provider Mark Shelite says “common, working people.” These are country people, generations of farmers and factory workers who have been working hard since getting off the boat. With dignified deliberateness, AFI providers like Shelite market the idea of a small, working community. Shelite, for example, has been living and working in a town of about 6000 for the past twenty-six years.

AFI’s business decisions echo their identity. They were one of two companies to first boycott MTV after the television station depicted an Italian stereotype brutally beating his wife in their “low-rent version of The Sopranos.” At their website, they label a section of their corporate biography as “Our Values,” which describes their attempts to go Green, their charity priorities, and more.

Their reputation is impeccable: a Fortune 500 company with an A+ at the Better Business Bereau, well-informed rebuttals at Ripoff Report, and high rankings anywhere else you look, this is a company that bends over backwards trying to please consumers. It’s not a scam, either—it is good business that they know to whom they are selling, just like it was good business for them to come up with such a catchy jingle.