State Farm is the largest home insurer in the United States and, for most of the past century, its largest auto insurer as well, a Bloomington, Illinois company founded in 1922 to sell affordable auto coverage to farmers, which is where the name comes from.[1] It is not a public corporation but a mutual, owned by its policyholders, and in early 2026 it announced the largest dividend in its history, 5 billion dollars in cash back to auto customers, based on its strong 2025 results.[8] For a heartland company whose corporate PAC has leaned Republican for a quarter century, its most public political moment was an unlikely one: in 2022 State Farm briefly enlisted its agents to hand out transgender and non-binary children's books, then reversed course within about a day once the effort became a conservative boycott target.[2][6][7]
- State Farm dropped an LGBTQ children's book program within a day of a conservative boycott.
- Its PAC has leaned Republican for decades, but the tilt has narrowed toward 59 percent.
- It signed a 2019 Supreme Court brief backing job protections for LGBTQ workers.
- It announced the largest dividend in its history, 5 billion dollars back to auto customers.
- In 2026 Progressive edged past it as the largest US private auto insurer.
Quick Take
State Farm behaves like a large, regulated insurer that plays both sides in Washington rather than a company defined by a partisan identity. Its corporate PAC gave about 540,900 dollars to federal candidates in the 2023-2024 cycle, and its aggregated federal giving has tilted Republican for decades, though the Republican share has narrowed from roughly 80 percent in the mid-2000s to about 59 percent in 2024.[2][4] The company reported about 2.5 million dollars in federal lobbying in 2024, aimed at insurance data privacy, automobile right to repair, wildfire coverage, and tax rules.[3][5] The sharpest political episode was cultural, not financial: a short lived 2022 partnership to distribute LGBTQ themed children's books through agents, which State Farm ended under pressure from a conservative campaign while saying it still supported the LGBTQ community.[6][7]
Where the Money Goes
State Farm's federal campaign money runs mainly through the State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance PAC, a corporate PAC that federal law requires be funded by voluntary employee contributions rather than the company treasury.[2] In the 2023-2024 cycle that PAC gave about 540,900 dollars to federal candidates, financed by 781 individual contributions of 200 dollars or more from eligible employees.[4]
Counting the PAC together with individual employee donations and limited soft money, OpenSecrets put State Farm's aggregated federal giving at about 1.88 million dollars in the 2024 cycle, split roughly 59 percent to Republicans and 41 percent to Democrats.[2] Naming the subset matters, because these buckets differ: the totals include employee money, not just company checks, and organizations themselves cannot give directly to candidates. The more interesting number is the trend. State Farm's aggregate giving ran about 79 percent Republican in the 2010 cycle and near 88 percent Republican in the 2000 cycle; the Republican share has since drifted down toward 59 percent in the most recent cycle, a narrowing tilt rather than a flip.[2] The organization reported no outside spending or independent expenditures in 2024, meaning it did not fund super PAC style advertising.[3]
The Lobbying Footprint
State Farm reported about 2.5 million dollars in federal lobbying in 2024.[3] The bills it disclosed lobbying on read like an insurer's working agenda rather than an ideological program: the Insurance Data Protection Act and the American Privacy Rights Act on data and privacy, the REPAIR Act and the SMART Act on automobile parts and right to repair, the Wildfire Insurance Coverage Study Act, a booster seat safety bill, and research and development tax measures.[5] It also tracked labor legislation such as the Protecting the Right to Organize Act.[5] The pattern is access and regulation, the same footprint most large insurers keep in Washington.
Social Positions, and a Backlash
State Farm's public record on social issues runs in more than one direction. In July 2019 it joined more than 200 companies and industry associations in signing a friend of the court brief urging the Supreme Court to read the Civil Rights Act as barring employment discrimination based on sexual orientation and gender identity, the question the Court answered in 2020 in Bostock v. Clayton County; the company's general counsel said signing the brief affirmed a belief in a workplace free of discrimination.[13]
State Farm's most visible political moment had nothing to do with campaign checks. In early 2022, according to an internal email later leaked to the conservative nonprofit Consumers' Research, State Farm asked agents to help distribute three children's books produced with The GenderCool Project, titled A Kids Book About Being Transgender, A Kids Book About Being Inclusive, and A Kids Book About Being Non-Binary, to teachers, libraries, and community centers.[6][7] In late May 2022, Consumers' Research launched an ad campaign that parodied State Farm's good neighbor slogan as a creepy neighbor, and within about a day State Farm announced it was ending the GenderCool partnership.[6][7]
In its statement, State Farm said the program had become the subject of news and customer inquiries, that it supported resources for parents to discuss gender and identity with their children at home, and that it did not support required curriculum in schools.[6] The company's chief diversity officer, Victor Terry, added that State Farm would continue to support organizations aligned with its commitment to diversity and inclusion, including the LGBTQ community.[7] The reversal drew criticism from both directions, from conservatives who said it did not go far enough and from supporters of the program who saw a large company retreating under pressure, and it became one of that year's most cited corporate culture war episodes.[6][7]
The books episode was not State Farm's only public move on social issues. In October 2020, in the months after the murder of George Floyd, the company pledged 100 million dollars over five years to minority communities and racial equity and justice, aligning it with the Business Roundtable's Racial Equity and Justice Initiative. State Farm said the money, a mix of charitable contributions and community investments, would fund small business support, affordable housing programs, and educational advancement programs.[11]
Founding, Ownership, and Structure
State Farm was founded on June 7, 1922, by retired farmer and insurance salesman George J. Mecherle, who built it around a then novel idea: charging farmers less because rural drivers had fewer accidents than city drivers.[1] It grew into the largest home insurer in the country and, for decades, its largest auto insurer as well, and it remains structurally unusual for its size. State Farm is a mutual company owned by its policyholders, not a publicly traded corporation, so it files no SEC reports and issues no stock.[1] That ownership form is why its headline financial story in 2025 was a customer dividend rather than a share buyback: after a rough stretch that included billions of dollars in auto underwriting losses, State Farm reported 132.3 billion dollars in total revenue and 12.9 billion dollars in net income for 2025, and in February 2026 it announced a 5 billion dollar dividend to auto policyholders, the largest in company history, averaging about 100 dollars across more than 49 million vehicles and paid beginning in the summer of 2026.[8] Leadership passed to a longtime insider in 2024, when Jon Farney, who joined the company in 1993 and had been chief financial officer, became president and chief executive, succeeding Michael Tipsord, who stayed on as chairman.[9][10]
Recent News
The event shaping State Farm's recent business is the January 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, which the company said drove more than 5 billion dollars in payments to affected families, part of nearly 15 billion dollars in catastrophe claims State Farm paid across 2025, and weighed on its property results even as strong auto results and investment gains lifted overall profit; the company has said the wildfire payments alone could reach 7 billion dollars.[8] State Farm has been seeking rate increases and trimming its exposure in the California home insurance market, a running dispute with state regulators that is regulatory and financial rather than partisan. On the auto side, S&P Global Market Intelligence estimated in 2026 that Progressive had edged past State Farm as the largest US private passenger auto insurer on a trailing 12-month basis, the first change at the top of that ranking since 1942, though the two remained close: the estimate adjusted for two New Jersey subsidiaries whose figures are not publicly disclosed, and on the unadjusted public filings State Farm still held a narrow lead. State Farm remained the country's largest home insurer.[12] Its operations are almost entirely domestic; State Farm sold its Canadian business to Desjardins in the mid 2010s, so its documented political activity sits within the United States.[1]
What They Sell and Where to Find Them
State Farm sells auto insurance, its original and largest line, along with homeowners, renters, life, and other personal coverage, plus banking and investment products, distributed almost entirely through a network of roughly 19,000 exclusive agents backed by a large employee base.[1][8] Its advertising, from the Like a Good Neighbor jingle to the Jake from State Farm character, has made it one of the most recognized brands in American insurance. The company is headquartered in Bloomington, Illinois, and because it is a mutual it has no ticker symbol and no shareholders to answer to, only its policyholders.[1]
Footnotes
[1] Wikipedia, 'State Farm,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Farm
[2] OpenSecrets, 'State Farm Insurance Profile: Totals,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/state-farm-insurance/totals?id=D000000659
[3] OpenSecrets, 'State Farm Insurance Profile: Summary,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/state-farm-insurance/summary?id=D000000659
[4] OpenSecrets, 'State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance PAC, contributions to federal candidates, committee C00544817,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/state-farm-mutual-automobile-insurance/C00544817/candidate-recipients/2024
[5] OpenSecrets, 'State Farm Insurance Profile: Lobbying,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://www.opensecrets.org/orgs/state-farm-insurance/lobbying?id=D000000659
[6] The Washington Post, 'State Farm, facing conservative uproar, drops support of LGBTQ children's book program GenderCool,' May 24, 2022. https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2022/05/24/state-farm-lgbtq-childrens-books/
[7] Snopes, 'State Farm Cuts Ties With Group After Anti-LGBTQ Campaign,' May 26, 2022. https://www.snopes.com/news/2022/05/26/state-farm-cuts-ties-with-lgbtq-group/
[8] State Farm, 'State Farm Reports 2025 Financial Results,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-reports-2025-financial-results/
[9] State Farm, 'Our Leadership Team,' accessed August 18, 2026. https://www.statefarm.com/about-us/leadership-team
[10] State Farm, 'State Farm Announces New Leadership,' March 14, 2024. https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-new-ceo/
[11] State Farm, '$100 Million Pledge to Help Close Racial Equity and Justice Gaps,' accessed August 19, 2026. https://newsroom.statefarm.com/100-million-pledge-to-close-racial-equity-and-justice-gaps/
[12] Husain Rupawala, Jason Woleben and Tim Zawacki, S&P Global Market Intelligence, 'Progressive now No. 1 US private auto insurer for full 12 months, estimates show,' May 28, 2026. https://www.spglobal.com/market-intelligence/en/news-insights/research/2026/05/progressive-now-no-1-us-private-auto-insurer-for-full-12-months-estimates-show
[13] State Farm, 'State Farm Stands in Defense of Diversity, Equality, and Inclusion,' July 2, 2019. https://newsroom.statefarm.com/state-farm-stands-in-defense-of-diversity-equality-and-inclusion/
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