Foremost receives prestigious awards at National IMCA Showcase Competition

GRAND RAPIDS, Mich., July 30, 2013 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- Foremost Insurance Group won two prestigious industry awards at the annual Insurance Marketing and Communications Association (IMCA) conference and competition showcase recently held in Philadelphia. The IMCA holds the annual competition to recognize outstanding marketing and communications work in the insurance industry to promote higher standards of excellence. Foremost submitted four entries this year and was awarded a 'Best of Show' and an 'Award of Excellence' at the conference.

The IMCA competition includes 35 categories ranging from print material to television commercials that are judged on numerous criteria including, strategy and goals, design and presentation, and content/audience and focus. Judging of entries is conducted by teams of marketing, advertising, communications, design and audio-visual professionals from outside and within the insurance industry.

Out of the over 300 entries submitted to the competition, 35 entries received 'Best of Show' and 55 received 'Award of Excellence' awards. All entries submitted by Foremost were scored in the top 50% of the competition and were showcased at the conference. The two winning entries included, 'Bill and Jack's Adventures,' in the marketing social media category and 'Hall of Fame,' in the external corporate print communication category.

"Foremost has worked hard to become an insurance industry vanguard in the social media space and by driving this campaign horizontally through the consumer, agent and employee channels, and vertically from personal interaction through email and ultimately Facebook and Twitter, we were able to produce astounding results with our 'Bill and Jack's Adventures' social media campaign," said Jeff Bair, head of independent agent merchandising and business development, who accepted the prestigious awards at the conference. "Likewise, the 'Hall of Fame' project was an extremely professional and well done print project targeted towards our top-producing independent agents."

Bair said this was the first time that Foremost has been showcased numerous times in the competition and looks forward to competition at this event next year. "We are constantly looking for ways to engage our agents with the newest technology, design and content. I think these awards are a great representation of what our company can and does do in the insurance merchandising space," said Bair.

To learn more about Foremost products or to share feedback, visit www.Foremost.com">www.Foremost.com, our blog at blog.foremost.com, our Facebook page at www.Facebook.com/ForemostInsurance">www.Facebook.com/ForemostInsurance, our Twitter page at www.Twitter.com/Foremost">www.Twitter.com/Foremost.

A part of the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies®, Foremost Insurance Group ("Foremost") has been a leader in personal lines insurance since 1952. Foremost is headquartered in Caledonia, Michigan. Farmers Insurance Group of Companies is a leading U.S. insurer group of automobiles, homes and small businesses 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 more than 50,000 exclusive and independent agents and nearly 24,000 employees. 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. Farmers Group, Inc., along with its subsidiaries, manages the non-claims insurance operations of the Farmers Exchanges. Farmers Group, Inc. is wholly owned by the Zurich Insurance Group. For more information about Farmers, visit its Web site at www.farmers.com">www.farmers.com.