State Farm Bureau Versus American Farm Bureau

In late August, insurance company Country Financial the Illinois Farm Bureau's controlled affiliate company voted to eliminate the Farm Bureau membership eligibility requirement for Non Farm Insurance policy holders in the state. This decision led the American Farm Bureau Federation to terminate the Illinois Farm Bureau Federation's membership in the AFBF Illinois Farm Bureau vice president, Evan Hultine.

“Originally it was effective December 20, but we at Illinois Farm Bureau filed lawsuit to basically say that we disagree. We don't think you can terminate our membership based on some of our contractual agreements that we have dating all the way back to 1990 saying that AFBF can't threaten our membership based on the business decisions of our affiliate companies.”

Hultine says that the Illinois Farm Bureau is disappointed in the decision.

“It's an unfortunate thing that we're in this situation. We're Illinois Farm Bureau leaders were all pretty disappointed, especially given the trying economic times we have right now. As farmers, the American Farm Bureau would want to turn their back on 70,000 plus farmers in Illinois based on an insurance decision made for strategic business reasons in the insurance world.”

AFBF President Zippy Duvall, said the decision to vote out the Illinois Farm Bureau is related to maintaining farmer control of organizational decisions.