Farmers Insurance Participates in First-Ever National Tornado Preparedness Summit in Oklahoma City

With 2011's tornado outbreaks reaching record breaking loss of life and property damage, and major tornado outbreaks early this year taking the lives of 37 people, Farmers Insurance is proud to participate in the first-ever National Tornado Preparedness Summit March 11-13 in Oklahoma City.

"Farmers is pleased to sponsor meteorologist Jim Cantore, meteorologist from the Weather Channel who will conduct a general session on the potential impact of weather events," noted Farmers State Executive Director John Lucido. We will also sponsor two important breakout sessions on March 12:

Warning Before the Warning -- Some people don't know about a tornado until the wind starts rattling their windows, others predict destructive weather days ahead and Greg Carbin, NOAA Meteorologist, Oklahoma City, will tell you how.

Disaster Recovery: Stress Faced in Long-Term Disaster Recovery -- Dr. Brenda Phillips, Oklahoma State University Professor in the Fire and Emergency Management Program and Researcher with the Center for the Study of Disasters and Extreme Events will explore what barriers stand in the way of repairing and rebuilding after a disaster.

Farmers Oklahoma Manager of Government and Industry Affairs Kim Decker, the co-chair of the Oklahoma Catastrophe Response Task Force and co-chair of the National Tornado Summit, said, "I am absolutely thrilled with the program and special events that have been created for the National Tornado Summit. I believe the attendees will be equally thrilled and looking forward to coming back again for next year's summit."

"Farmers Insurance is proud to have played a key role in helping to make the National Tornado Summit a reality," said Farmers Oklahoma State Executive John Lucido. "In fact, it was one of my employees, DeWayne Merritt, who thought of creating this summit and a number of other Farmers employees have played key roles in the event planning and preparation."

"It's hard to believe that I and other members of the Farmers family only just met with Insurance Commissioner John Doak in July, 2011 to discuss the idea of creating a tornado summit, and here we are eight months later about to welcome almost 800 attendees to what we believe will be an absolutely outstanding event," said Merritt, Farmers Oklahoma Personal Lines Growth Consultant.

Farmers Insurance Group of Companies is the country's 3rd largest insurer of both personal lines passenger automobile and homeowners insurance, and also provides a wide range of other insurance and financial services products. Farmers Insurance is proud to serve more than 10 million households with more than 20 million individual policies across all 50 states through the efforts of over 50,000 exclusive and independent agents and nearly 24,000 employees.

Farmers is a trade name and may refer to Farmers Group, Inc. or the Farmers Exchanges, as the case may be. Farmers Group, Inc., a management and holding company, along with its subsidiaries, is wholly owned by the Zurich Financial Services Group. The Farmers Exchanges are three reciprocal insurers (Farmers Insurance Exchange, Fire Insurance Exchange and Truck Insurance Exchange), including their subsidiaries and affiliates, owned by their policyholders, and managed by and its subsidiaries.