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Who We Are
We got our start in 1953.
That’s when Farm Bureau leaders, concerned by a lack of insurance coverage for farmers and rural communities in North Carolina, formed the North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company. Although our company began with a mission to provide affordable insurance to farmers, our current products and services protect the diverse group of people and the multitude of needs that North Carolina embodies. That’s why we have remained faithful to our mission to serve Farm Bureau members in every community in North Carolina, ensuring that members have the appropriate and affordable insurance coverage they need.
Now, as then, North Carolina Farm Bureau serves as an advocate for our members at the local, state, national, and international levels - providing educational, economic, public affairs, marketing, and various other services to its members. Together, as members, we have the resources to enrich local communities across every county in the state.
The North Carolina Farm Bureau Mutual Insurance Company was incorporated September 15, 1953 under the laws of North Carolina, and first conducted business on October 2 of that year. Originally headquartered in Greensboro and offering only automobile coverage, the company received applications for 321 policies and $12,000 in premium in its first two months. Company headquarters were moved to Raleigh in October, 1959, and total assets crossed the $2,000,000 mark.
As product offerings expanded to include coverage for Homeowners, Inland Marine, Farmowners, Family Medical and other commercial and liability policies, the company grew along with it. By the end of the decade, the company employed over 100 employees and fielded a sales force of over 200 agents. The newly installed Data Processing equipment processed over 1,000,000 transactions a month in 1969.
The new home office at 5301 Glenwood Avenue in Raleigh was honored with a national award for landscape design, and the company joined the "Keep North Carolina Beautiful Project" as an example of our longstanding commitment to community service. In 1979, the company realized its largest underwriting gain to date ($4.5 million) and had over $30 million in policyholder surplus.
Hurricane Hugo made landfall on September 21, 1989, and the company paid out in excess of $38 million on more than 20,000 claims from the damage left in its wake. Assistance from all areas within the company, as well as from other Farm Bureaus, showed that our company delivers on our promise - even in a dire situation such as Hurricane Hugo. The first Regional Claims Office was opened the same year to give better service to our policyholders.
Our agency force began turning in their pencils for laptops, as the company continued to leverage technology improvements to better serve our members and policyholders. Multiple catastrophic storms hit the state, including Bertha and Fran in 1996, and Floyd in 1999. With Hurricane Fran, in a 24 hour period, we incurred 60,000 claims totaling about $200 million in payments to our policyholders. Through it all, the company remained strong. Employees (now totaling over 500) held canned food drives for victims of Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and the company donated $1 million to the Hurricane Floyd relief effort.
We entered the new millennium without any Y2K problems, thanks to years of effort dating back to 1994 by our information systems staff. By 2009, the company was stronger than ever - with more than $1.6 billion in assets and over 1,000,000 policies in force. Our company continues to serve North Carolina in every county of our state, and is still committed to the same ideals, mission, and purposes for which it was established in 1953…to serve its members.
