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Mercury Insurance history
Mercury Insurance company history timeline
Mercury's California expansion began in 1964 with the opening of its first Orange County office.
Mercury offices opened in Northern California by 1968.
Joseph formed a subsidiary in 1973 to undertake the underwriting of preferred-risk policies.
Newly created Mercury Insurance Company wrote its first auto policy in 1977.
In 1985 Mercury converted to public ownership in an initial public offering on the NASDAQ exchange.
After three years of construction, the current 36,000-square-foot office building on Wilshire Boulevard was occupied by Mercury General in December 1986.
Mercury expanded outside of California, opening offices in Georgia and Illinois beginning in 1989.
Known for shrewdly keeping overhead costs to a minimum and for its attention to detail in the screening process of potential customers, Mercury began expanding geographically in 1990, nearly doubling its revenue during a three-year period during the mid-1990s.
In 1993 the company's underwriting losses were 61 percent of premiums earned, a figure that compared favorably to the higher (and less profitable) average of 73 percent registered by Mercury's eight largest California competitors.
At Mercury's annual shareholder meeting in May 1994, he made a startling announcement.
In December 1996, the company purchased American Fidelity Insurance Group for $35 million.
Operating as one of the fastest-growing automobile insurers in the nation, Mercury ranked as the largest independent agency writer of automobile insurance in California and the sixth-largest of all automobile insurers in California, up from the seventh position it had occupied in 1996.
After establishing operations in Florida in January 1998, Mercury, with Joseph in charge, prepared for the new century ahead, its business thriving under the operating strategy created by its septuagenarian founder.
The company insured more than 1 million vehicles in California by 1998.
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Mercury Insurance competitors
| Company name | Founded date | Revenue | Employee size | Job openings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| GEICO | 1936 | $25.5B | 40,000 | 1,187 |
| The Travelers Companies | 1853 | $231.7M | 30,800 | 1,441 |
| Progressive | 1937 | $35.0M | 43,001 | 134 |
| Infinity Insurance | 2002 | $1.5B | 2,400 | - |
| Allstate | 1931 | $44.7B | 45,780 | 835 |
| Safeco Insurance | 1923 | $6.3B | 7,200 | - |
| Crawford & Company | 1941 | $1.3B | 9,000 | 136 |
| Fireman's Fund Insurance Company | 1863 | $723.0M | 2,000 | - |
| Insurance Overload | - | - | 176 | - |
| Kemper | 1990 | $10.5M | 10,000 | 737 |
Mercury Insurance history FAQs
Zippia gives an in-depth look into the details of Mercury Insurance, including salaries, political affiliations, employee data, and more, in order to inform job seekers about Mercury Insurance. The employee data is based on information from people who have self-reported their past or current employments at Mercury Insurance. The data on this page is also based on data sources collected from public and open data sources on the Internet and other locations, as well as proprietary data we licensed from other companies. Sources of data may include, but are not limited to, the BLS, company filings, estimates based on those filings, H1B filings, and other public and private datasets. While we have made attempts to ensure that the information displayed are correct, Zippia is not responsible for any errors or omissions or for the results obtained from the use of this information. None of the information on this page has been provided or approved by Mercury Insurance. The data presented on this page does not represent the view of Mercury Insurance and its employees or that of Zippia.
Mercury Insurance may also be known as or be related to Mercury General, Mercury General Corporation, Mercury Insurance and Mercury Insurance Company.