Auto-Owners Insurance reviews

Yes, it is true, A-O does not have competitive pay in comparison to the current market. I've seen some new hire devs here leave and make double at comparable companies. A-O is bleeding very good talent right now. If you want to make 6 figs or even close, look elsewhere. I think this is due to being able to not have to lay anyone off in over 100 years. So you'll have to weigh job security vs competitive pay. This increase of high turnover makes it harder for those who do decide to stay to here (overhead of training/mentoring someone who'll leave in a year). So it hurts everyone. Management is not consistent, jumping team to team. I've had managers that were very lenient and understanding, but others being stricter than strict. Not to mention your common personality differences that can either make working at A-O enjoyable or miserable. The work from home program was honestly a joke. Not sure if they have changed things since I left. But with new hires, you have to be in the office 4 days a week, and the fifth day you could work from home. I guess it also depends on you manager as they have the final word on how much you can work from home. Not very enticing, if you ask me. The company was able to thrive during the pandemic with everyone working from home, including all of new hires! Plus, depending on the project you're working on, you may be asked to work a day or so in the office, while the rest of your team can 100% WFH. I don't think that is very fair. Oh, and if you go in the office to work, it's Business Casual dress code. So like a polo shirt and long dress slacks are a minimum for guys. So no hoodies or shorts that you'd normally be able to wear while working from home. Although I heard that now some webex meetings might require you to the same dress code. But that might've been more for client-based meetings, not meetings with other associates. Also depending on the team/project, you could easily burnout. So definitely watch out for that. They claim to have a healthy work/life balance, here at A-O, but I have found that is not always the case (especially nowadays). I used to brag about this balance, as a defense to never leave A-O (even fully aware that better pay is out there), but once you start to bear the burden of some projects, as it piles on, you start to question if the pay is worth it. For me, it wasn't. Pay transparency is not a thing here. I knew I was up for a promotion, but could not even get a range of what it would look like in terms of money. I guess this is in A-O's favor, because your yearly merit raise will typically never be more than 5%, even with a promotion. If I knew that, I wouldn't be as motivated as I would be with not knowing. However, there are different pay grades which I would hope would have more significant raises, but you'd have to be there for many, many, years to actually see that. Really anti-motivational, really. Never get to see the potential you'll have if you stick with A-O. My new job immediately told me what I could make at the next promotion, and first of all, it was a lot more than 5%, and second of all, they were even able to tell me before my first day. Oh, and if you become a COBOL developer, you will be paid less than an Java or other "modern" devs. I think they really need to make bigger pushes away from mainframe or make this pay gap not exist. Because who's teaching COBOL in schools? None that I know of. In fact, I never heard of it until I came to A-O. Makes it a more scarce pool to pick up good, experienced COBOL devs. Idk, just IMO. Speaking of COBOL, the technology you'll use here can be pretty deprecated/archaic (depending on your team). I think you'll find this anywhere, but I feel like I lose out on learning new practical technologies/techniques, because you have to spend more work hours on outdated or unsupported technologies, even as a Java dev. I will say, there are a few teams at A-O that do some really cool stuff and have pretty modern stuff. Others, not so much.

This company was founded in 1916 and it’s still operated as if it’s 1916. Management micro-manages you and put more work on you than you can accomplish in a normal work week, especially the claims branch. They have unit specialists doing the job of a claim rep, with no compensation and no title raise. They operate as if there are no laws to protect the employees….oh wait a minute, there aren’t protections. It’s Michigan and they are an at-will employer. So be careful, if you can’t keep up with the amount of work, they’ll make your life a living hell until you can’t take it anymore and quit. They don’t treat the elderly and older employees very well, they really don’t want you to retire there, they want you out so they can hire some young 18 year old that will start making $25,000 a year. Yes, they really do pay that in 2018, no lie. They famously hire outside the company and don’t give employees opportunities who have paid their dues and put in their time. They don’t appreciate what you do and make sure that you know that the bonuses are not guaranteed. But how much does the CEO make? Rarely are you appreciated for what you do, even when you go above and beyond and stay late working without getting compensated for it. They promise you will go far if you do that, but only if you have your head up the VP’s hind end, and he likes it.