State Farm Closing 11 Facilities, Some Jobs Expected to Move to Bloomington

As part of the plan, the company will close 11 facilities across the country, and about 4,200 employees will have job opportunities at other State Farm locations in Bloomington, Dallas, Phoenix and Atlanta, Ga., as well as other existing locations across the U.S.

It is not known now how many jobs could relocate to Bloomington. 

"That is a great question and something I don't have the answer to," said State Farm spokesman Justin Tomczak. "I know that the current employees will be offered opportunities, but I can't make any bold predictions on how many are coming to specific areas."

Still, Twin City officials were pleased with the announcement.

"This is real good news for us," said Kyle Ham, CEO of the Bloomington-Normal Economic Development Council. "State Farm is a huge company, a Fortune 50 company, that continues to be strategic and realign to be efficient.

"We are just glad that the Bloomington headquarters is part of the mix in this realignment."

Austin Grammer, the city of Bloomington's economic development coordinator, said the city is ready to assist State Farm with the transfer.

"It's always good news when a local employer is increasing its staffing in the city due to our positive business climate," he said.

"If some of those jobs come to Bloomington, obviously we're very happy about that," said Bloomington Mayor Tari Renner. "We look forward to continuing to work with State Farm as they move forward."

The first closures will begin in 2018 in Parsippany, N.J., and Petaluma, Calif. In 2019, facilities in Kalamazoo, Mich., Irvine, Calif., and Tulsa, Okla., will be shut down. The Downers Grove facility is expected to close in 2020, along with facilities in Indianapolis, Medley, Fla., and West Lafayette, Ind. In 2021, the Bakersfield, Calif., and Frederick, Md., facilities will close.

"We understand the decision to exit these facilities directly affects our employees and their communities," said Mary Schmidt, executive vice president and chief administrative officer, in a statement. "While the exits will begin in 2018 and continue over several years, we are announcing this decision now in order to give employees time to make personal and professional decisions.

"The company will continue to have a strong local presence in these communities through our agents and local claims employees."

The company's decision to exit these facilities was made to gain efficiencies through streamlining and leveraging technology while concentrating employees in larger locations, she said.

In February, the company reported a pre-tax operating loss of $1.2 billion for 2016, but the company's net worth still increased. The company ended the year with a combined net worth of $87.6 billion, which was up from $82.7 billion at the end of 2015.

In February 2013, the company announced plans to create a trio of hubs in Dallas, Atlanta and Phoenix as part of an expansion plan. At the time, the company indicated it had no plans to move its headquarters from Bloomington, but some employees based in Bloomington-Normal were reassigned to other locations.

"If you look big picture, when they expanded into those three markets, you knew there was going to be some leakage from the community because this is the place that had been the headquarters forever and you need some of that expertise around the other hubs," Ham said. "This seems to be on observation of leveling off where we are now receiving some of that back. So that's good news for the local area."