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You probably know the Farmers Insurance jingle from decades of TV ads. But like many large insurance companies with big marketing budgets, Farmers has limited options for business owners.
The company sells basic business insurance policies, including a business owner’s policy, commercial auto insurance and workers’ comp. But Farmers can’t help you with professional liability insurance or coverage for your tools and equipment. The company also gets poor customer satisfaction ratings in third-party surveys.
If you already use Farmers for your personal insurance, it’s worth talking to your agent about your options. Farmers may offer you a discount if you add commercial insurance to your bundle.
But if you’re starting from scratch, look for an independent agent instead. They can help you compare options from several companies. That list won’t include Farmers, but that won’t stop you from finding the coverage you need at a competitive price.
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Farmers business insurance pros and cons
Pros
Fewer complaints than expected filed with state regulators about commercial liability and property insurance between 2022 and 2024.
Customer support available seven days per week.
Cons
Doesn’t sell professional liability insurance.
Only available in 43 states.
Can’t get a quote or buy a policy online.
What Farmers business insurance does well
Relatively few customer complaints
Fewer Farmers general liability and commercial property insurance customers complained to state regulators than we’d expect, given the company’s market share, between 2022 and 2024. For comparison, State Farm received more complaints than we expected. That company sells insurance through captive agents, just like Farmers does, so customer experiences should be comparable.
This is a positive signal about a company. It doesn’t mean Farmers customers have no complaints (they do; see below). They just didn’t feel wronged enough to take them all the way to state officials.
Where Farmers business insurance falls short
At the same time, poor customer satisfaction scores
Farmers received below-average customer satisfaction scores in J.D. Power’s annual small commercial insurance survey in its two most recent years (2024 and 2025). This survey asks thousands of small-business owners about their experiences with insurance prices, policy offerings, claims, customer support and digital offerings. J.D. Power also asks about how much policyholders trust the company in general.
This measures something different from complaints filed with state regulators. It’s vibes.
Maybe Farmers customers don’t feel the need to report the company for wrongdoing. But when someone took time to ask, fewer said they were satisfied than average. To me, that signals poor experiences with customer service and agents, but not necessarily denied claims or insufficient payouts.
Missing some key policies
Farmers doesn’t sell professional liability insurance or liquor liability insurance. These policies are important for consultants and restaurants, respectively. If you give advice to clients or operate a food and drink or event business, shop elsewhere.
Pulled out of Florida in 2023
Three years ago, Farmers announced that it would stop offering new homeowners, auto or umbrella insurance in Florida. It said hurricanes had made the risk too great.
The company no longer has agents in Florida, which means no new business insurance policies, either. On Reddit, some insurance agents say Farmers seems to be consolidating operations and underwriting fewer policies in other states too.
For many policyholders, this is actually a prudent change. Pulling out of risky markets should make Farmers more financially resilient. But it’s always possible the company will take this step in other states in the future.
In addition to Florida, Farmers does not sell policies in Alaska, Delaware, Hawaii, Louisiana, South Carolina and West Virginia.
How we evaluated Farmers business insurance
NerdWallet’s business insurance star ratings include these factors:
- Financial strength (33%). This tells us how likely an insurance company is to be able to pay out claims if there’s a major disaster or financial crisis. Farmers and its subsidiaries all have “excellent” ratings from AM Best.
- Customer complaints (33%). The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects data about how many complaints an insurer’s customers file. Farmers received fewer complaints about general liability insurance and commercial property insurance between 2022 and 2024 than what we’d expect, given its market share.
- Purchase process (17%). Farmers only sells policies through captive Farmers agents. In general, this limits your coverage options because captive agents can’t get you rates from multiple insurers.
- Customer support (17%). Farmers has extended customer service hours, and you can file a claim online or over the phone. It’s not clear from Farmers’ website how policyholders access their certificate of insurance, though.
I take two further steps when writing reviews of business insurers. These don’t currently inform our star ratings, but you’ll see details about them in this review:
- Aggregating customer reviews and complaints. I used an AI tool to summarize what policyholders say about Farmers on websites like Reddit, WalletHub and the Better Business Bureau. We don’t factor this feedback into star ratings because it’s usually anonymous and we can’t verify it. Plus, Farmers also underwrites home, auto and life insurance, and most complaints deal with those policies. Still, this analysis offers some insight into customers’ experience with the company overall.
- Trying the online quote process. Farmers has a “get a quote” button on its website. But you won’t get pricing data from clicking it. Instead, you just submit your information and the company will pass it along to an agent.
What policyholders think about Farmers business insurance
A handful of business owners have written reviews about poor agent service and smaller-than-expected refunds upon canceling policies. But I didn’t find enough comments to draw conclusions about Farmers business insurance.
That said, lots of online discussion about Farmers focuses on personal insurance policies, like home, auto and renters. Here are a couple themes that stood out from those reviewers:
👎 Confusing fees and refunds
Some online commenters say they faced surprising fees or weren’t able to get the refunds they expected. To me, these complaints usually indicate poor communication by the insurance company. They should outline fees clearly on billing statements and make refund policies easy to find.
👎 Hard to cancel
Some dissatisfied customers say they struggled to cancel their Farmers policies. In some cases, the company kept charging them after they thought they’d canceled. Like fees and refunds, cancellation policies should be clear and easy to act on.
What business insurance policies does Farmers sell?
Farmers sells:
- Commercial auto insurance.
- Workers’ comp.
- General liability insurance.
- Commercial property insurance.
- Umbrella insurance.
- Commercial crime insurance.
Farmers also offers packages with coverage tailored to specific industries. These include:
- Apartment buildings.
- HOAs.
- Commercial real estate.
- Home and building services companies.
- Offices.
- Restaurants and food trucks.
- Wholesalers.
Notably, the Farmers website doesn’t mention professional liability insurance. That coverage is essential for any business that gives clients advice for a fee, like consultants. If you need it, try Hiscox or The Hartford instead.
How to get Farmers business insurance
You can’t get an online quote from Farmers, despite buttons on the company’s website that say “get a quote.” Instead, when I clicked on those buttons, Farmers invited me to submit some information about my business. The company then provided contact information for an agent near me and said someone would “review my request.”
You’ll have to work with a Farmers agent to buy business insurance from this company. This is the “captive agent” model — Farmers agents can only sell Farmers insurance, and agents are the only way to get a policy. State Farm works the same way.
In general, we recommend independent agents over captive ones. Independent agents can sell policies from multiple insurance companies. That means they can help you compare several quotes and choose the cheapest and best coverage for your business.
Methodology
Business insurance ratings methodology
NerdWallet rewards business insurance companies for reliability and good service. We calculate star ratings based on scores in about a dozen categories. These include:
- Each company's financial strength.
- How many complaints customers made relative to its market share.
- How easy it is to get coverage.
- How accessible customer service is.
Learn more about how we rate small-business insurance companies.
Our editorial team routinely fact-checks and updates these data points. We also adjust our scoring on an ongoing basis. This helps our star ratings reflect changing industry norms. For instance, in 2026, we began evaluating how easy insurers make it to add an additional insured.
Our ratings are a guide. But insurance policy details and prices can vary widely. We encourage you to shop around and compare several insurance quotes. NerdWallet does not receive compensation for any reviews. Read our editorial guidelines.
Insurer complaints methodology
One key factor in our star ratings is how many complaints insurance companies get. Here's how we arrive at that score.
Disappointed customers can file a complaint with their state's insurance department. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects, analyzes and groups complaints by business line and insurance company every year. A business line is a specific type of coverage, like workers’ comp.
Then, the NAIC calculates a complaint ratio for each company. It divides the company's share of complaints by its share of total premiums for each line of business. It then adds these ratio values to their official complaint index.
- A complaint ratio of 1 means a company received about the expected number of complaints relative to its size.
- A ratio of 2 means it received twice as many complaints as expected.
- A ratio of 0 means it received half as many complaints as expected.
NerdWallet obtains the raw NAIC data every year. We aggregate results at the company level and fact-check these results. Then we calculate a three-year average of each insurer's complaint ratio and convert it to a score for our star ratings.
Business insurance star ratings consider complaints about two lines of business: commercial liability and commercial property. We analyze complaint data on commercial auto and workers' comp policies too. But we don't currently incorporate these into our ratings since they're less universal.
