[4] Tyler and Leavey had both grown up with rural backgrounds and believed that farmers and ranchers, who had better driving records than urbanites, deserved lower insurance premiums.

[4][5][6] During the 1920s, farmers across the United States were establishing their own mutual insurance firms and cooperatives in order to have less expensive policies.

Tyler, the son of a South Dakotan insurance salesman, and Leavey, who had formerly worked for the Federal Farm Loan Bureau and the National Farm Loan Association, recognized that these farmers, ranchers, and other rural drivers were an overlooked market and wished to create their own auto insurance firm.

[4][5] Tyler and Leavey received a loan from the founder of Bank of America, enabling them to start their company.

[4] Tyler and Leavey opened the doors to their newly founded company, Farmers Automobile Inter-Insurance Exchange, in downtown Los Angeles, California.

Architects Claud Beelman & Herman Spackler add 4 floors and a seventh-floor garden terrace for staff in 1949.

Industries Plc, acquired Farmers Group, Inc. for $5.2 billion and became the sole stockholder of the company's 68 million shares of common stock.

In August 2000, Farmers Financial Solutions registered with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission as a broker-dealer.

[12] In October 2000, the Zurich structure was simplified and unified under a single Swiss holding company.

In 2005, after Hurricane Rita hit Beaumont, Texas, leaving it without power, Farmers Insurance brought in almost 300 insurance adjusters to assess exterior property damage in order to expedite the reconstruction effort, provided $100,000 for the emergency operations center, and two badly needed megawatt electric generators.

[14] During the October 2007 California wildfires, Farmers was one of only a few companies[15] to set up facilities to aid their customers.

In addition to writing checks for evacuation costs, damage claims, lodging and meals, the company ran commercials urging their customers to take advantage of these facilities.

The acquisition made Farmers the joint third-largest personal lines insurer in the U.S.[19] The acquired assets included AIG Hawaii.

[20] In response to the increasing number of deadly storms between 2010 and 2013, Farmers Insurance began "researching a model that municipalities across the United States could use to significantly reduce the time required for residential recovery."