Foremost Insurance in Anchorage, AlaskaSince the very beginning, Foremost has strived to offer the insurance products our customers want. We created a passionate culture of quick-thinking and decisiveness that continues to help us create coverages, find new markets, and develop superior ways to serve our customers. The 1950s: A Groundbreaking Start Foremost Insurance Company was founded in 1952 by a group of individuals with a novel idea: to insure mobile homes. At that time, the mobile home industry was in its infancy. Families grew at a record pace thanks to the “Baby Boom” and housing was in short supply. Mobile homes proved to be an inexpensive solution to the housing shortage, but few companies insured these “homes on wheels.” What started as a three-person operation in a one-room office in Grand Rapids, Michigan, quickly grew to a staff of eleven. In five years, we were doing business in 35 states. But mobile homes were just the start. The 1960s: Growth and Innovation As we entered the 1960s, Foremost continued to grow. We wrote our one-millionth insurance policy in 1966, and our Mobilowners Mobile Home program was the insurance policy of choice for mobile home owners in the United States. We remained true to our Michigan roots though, as we moved our headquarters twice in Grand Rapids to accommodate the growing number of employees. Innovation continued as well, as we developed new ways to insure recreational vehicles. In 1961, we introduced the first policy designed specifically for travel trailers and added motor homes to our product lineup by the end of the decade. We also began to focus on safety and commissioned a study to determine the effects of strong winds on mobile homes. Done in conjunction with the University of Michigan, the study proved that mobile homes could be protected from damaging winds if they were anchored or tied-down to the ground. This lead to a national public relations campaign: “Wise up – tie down,” and a number of states enacted mandatory tie-down laws. This proactive campaign also proved to be effective during our claims responses to all of the strong hurricanes that hit the gulf and east coasts throughout the decade. The 1970s: Public Interests Growth required change and the biggest change during the 1970s occured when Foremost went public in 1972. Going public offered Foremost even more opportunities to expand our offerings to include boats, motorcycles, snowmobiles, all-terrain vehicles and automobiles. We also used the opportunity to provide more services to help our customers. We overhauled our policy language and provided our customers with the first Easy-to-Read mobile home and travel trailer insurance policies. We launched Fire Hurts! — a mobile home fire safety program that helped deter arson and we worked with Department of Housing and Urban Development to establish the original mobile home building codes. As the decade progressed with oil embargos and a tight economy, we returned to a focus on mobile home and RV products, and stepped away from the boat, motorcycle, all-terrain vehicle and snowmobile markets. Still, more than one million customers trusted Foremost for their insurance policy needs, and service to our customers was our core focus. 1980s: Specialized Markets Foremost looked for even more ways to serve customers during the 1980s. Through research, we identified a key opportunity to offer specialized services and policies to mobile home owners over the age of 50. We introduced new products catering to that market, including automobile and traditional, standard homeowners policies. Our hard work and research with these customers helped Foremost earn the endorsement of AARP to offer mobile home insurance to their members in 1989. 1990s: New Opportunities We continued to innovate and expand our products in the 1990s. In 1993, we developed insurance programs for specialty homeowners and landlords. And in 1999, we developed a unique service program for the owners of luxury motor coaches. The technological revolution during that time also provided opportunities not seen before. We entered the Internet era in 1996 when we launched our first Web site, Foremost.com, presenting our customers and agents with new ways to learn about our products and the Company. We started our Company intranet site to more effectively and efficiently distribute information to our employees. We created an online resource for manufactured and mobile home owners with MyGreatHome.com and we launched sites that help agents do business with us more easily, like ForemostSTAR®, which provides access for our agents to quote, book, endorse, cancel and access business via the Internet. 2000s: Uncharted Territories One of the milestones in our history began when we announced that the Foremost was purchased by Farmers Insurance Group® and became a member of the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies®. The acquisition, completed on March 7, 2000, launched Foremost back into product markets we hadn’t sold since the 1970s. We soon began offering motorcycles and off-road vehicle insurance, including coverages for snowmobiles and golf carts. Over the next four years, we expanded our product offerings to also include personal watercraft, boats and collectible auto. 
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