21st Century Insurance & Financial Services^® presented with Distinguished Project Award from the Project Management Institute

Wilmington, DE (October 22, 2010) –  21st Century Insurance & Financial Services®, a member of the Farmers Insurance Group®, will be presented with the 2010 Distinguished Project Award  today from the Project Management Institute (PMI®) at a special ceremony held at the company’s Wilmington, Delaware headquarters.

“We are honored to be recognized by the Project Management Institute for having successfully implemented one of the most complex projects we have ever undertaken,” said Tony DeSantis, president of 21st Century Insurance. “I couldn’t be more proud of the entire team who worked on this key project.”

On an annual basis, PMI’s Distinguished Project Award recognizes and honors successful projects that have promoted project management concepts, techniques, practices or theories through the effective application of project management principles.

This year, 21st Century received PMI’s Distinguished Project Award for its “Day 1 Separation Project.” The project encompassed the successful separation from all dependencies on its former parent company for the 200 systems and business processes it utilized. The completed separation needed to take place before 21st Century could fully integrate with its new parent company, Farmers Insurance Group.

“Thanks to the efforts of our collaborative project team, we have set a new standard for project implementation at 21st Century.” said Doug Caccese, 21st Century vice president of operations and project management office leader. “Their success translated into a seamless company separation. I am incredibly proud.”

Not only did 21st Century successfully complete the separation as planned and on schedule, but they did it in just 90 days.

“We have some outstanding project managers who worked long and hard on the ‘Day 1 Separation’ project.  It's great that an organization like the PMI is recognizing their achievement,” stated Dave Grever, IT account executive.

The nomination package underwent a global review by PMI that assessed details regarding the project’s processes, tools and techniques used in the following areas:

• Integration Management – ensuring that all project components were coordinated.
• Time Management – plans that aided in ensuring timely completion of the project including: activity definitions, activity sequencing, critical path analysis and scheduling.
• Risk Management – how risk was identified, analyzed and the mitigation plans/ responses in place.
• Scope Management – how the scope of the effort was controlled including: project success criteria, constraints, and a defined scope management plan.
• Cost Management – plans that aided in ensuring that the project was completed on time and within budget.
• Quality Management – plans that answered the question, “When our world completely changes on July 1st, how will you define success?”
• Human Resource Management – team development, organizational planning, and staff acquisition.
• Communication Management - mass communications across thousands of impacted users needed to be organized; the delivery and interpretation of the messages across these users need to be validated.
• Monitoring and Controlling – how change controls, issues and risks were managed.
• Project Interpersonal Skills – how the team worked together, stayed motivated, and overcame challenges.

About 21st Century                                    
21st Century Insurance is a trade name for a leading group of direct-to-consumer auto insurers in the United States. 21st Century is dedicated to providing customers with excellent coverage and award-winning service and helping them save on auto insurance. Insuring over 2 million vehicles across 49 states and Washington, D.C., 21st Century is also a proud part of the Farmers Insurance Group of Companies®, the third largest personal lines insurer in the country. For more information, visit 21st.com or call (877) 310-5687 for a quote.

About Farmers
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 Farmers Group, Inc. and its subsidiaries. For more information about Farmers, visit our Web site at www.farmers.com or at www.Facebook.com/FarmersInsurance

About the PMI
PMI is the world’s leading not-for-profit membership association for the project management profession, with more than half a million members and credential holders in 185 countries. Our worldwide advocacy for project management is supported by our globally-recognized standards and credentials, our extensive research program, and our professional development opportunities.  For more information on PMI and the Distinguished Project Award, visit www.pmi.org.