When a disaster happens, we all want to have the ability to rebuild our homes, businesses, farms, and lives. And so we have insurance policies. An insurance policy is something you pay for each month, quarter, or year and then if something bad happens the insurance company helps you pay for it. In 1848 a group of farmers were tired of large insurance companies who didn’t understand their needs and didn’t treat them they way they wanted to be treated. So the started the Farmer’s Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Medina County. A backbone of this business was taking care of the policy holders – or the people who purchased insurance from them. It’s a business where people contact them at scary moments and need help. These two elements have driven the culture at Westfield to be one of taking care of people, making good financial decisions, managing relationships, and growing for over 175 years.

In 1848 a group of farmers in Medina County came together to address their insurance needs. As farmers, they had come together over the years to help each other through difficult times and saw an opportunity to build a company in their own image. They would focus on taking care of policy holders and helping people through challenging situations.

The last few years have seen more serious weather events than we have had in the past. There has been more damage to homes, businesses, and farms and that means more people depend on Westfield to help pay for damages. We have to be strategic in our thinking, or look at what could happen in the future, decide what we think will happen and come up with a plan that gives us the best possibility of success. We also deal with lots of government regulation as the government makes sure people can get the insurance they need and that their information is safe. We also went as paperless as possible a few years ago which means we have to constantly be improving our data security. Each state has its own data privacy laws that we have to follow and then we have standards we have set for ourselves.

We can sell commercial insurance, or insurance that takes care of businesses, in 21 states. We can sell personal insurance, which is for individuals and families, in 11 states. And, internationally we sell specialty insurance which covers unusual risks like earthquakes. We have over 2,600 employees across the country and in the U.K. We partner with insurance agents and brokers who choose to sell Westfield products because they see the value we provide.

When we remodeled our headquarters, we removed all paper filing cabinets. And there were a lot of them! We committed to going paperless and have centralized recycling bins and trash cans. We want everyone to be very aware of what they do with trash and how to limit the generation of more trash. When possible, we donate furniture to local organizations instead of putting them in landfills. And by using energy efficient fixtures and appliances we reduce our water usage by 500,000 gallons each year!

Insurance is a highly regulated environment which means the government has put lots of rules around what we can and cannot do to protect our customers. The good news is we want to take care of our policy holders and so many elected officials call us for advice and information. We have a team that manages our work with elected officials. We also interact with each state and their own rules and laws. We always want to be a part of the process.

The best way is to apply on our website. We have a number of positions open at any given time and people can apply right there. If they aren’t right for one position, they go into our database and will be considered for other things when they come up if they are qualified. 

Why do employees like to work here?

All of our employees would say it is because of our culture. We were founded to take care of policy holders and we help people when they are at a tough time in their lives. Those two things have established a culture of caring about people and communities. We are very involved in our communities because we want to be a part of the success and our employees can be proud when they see us support local events and foodbanks or show up as a sponsor at the Cleveland Cavaliers, or a stage at Playhouse Square.