Pros
I have been working at Central for two years and am amazed at how the individuals in this company come together as a team to overcome any obstacle or even to make a difference in their community. Central places a high value on continuous employee development, offering free classes throughout the year to improve knowledge about the insurance industry.
Founded in 1876, Central has a mature, rich culture that is serious about upholding its core values of Integrity, Relationships, and Excellence. For such a mature company in an already conservative industry, it would be easy to assume that Central is rigid: unable to adapt to the needs and wants of a changing workforce. Nothing could be further from the truth! While there are still some remnants of days past in organizational structure or general operations, much of that can be attributed to the nature of the industry, not an opposition to change. Executives are very open to new ideas and thoughts on how the company can adapt to a changing workforce, and this has resulted in a number of very positive changes.
One change of particular note for IT professionals would be the introduction of agile methodologies in application development. I currently work on the first agile team the company has created and am extremely impressed at the level of support from upper management that is willing to provide us with anything we need to adapt to this new development process. I have no doubt in my mind that Central will continue to make positive changes to IT and the company as a whole to ensure that we are successful and attract the best talent in this highly competitive industry.
I would highly recommend a career at Central to anyone who is interested in being a part of a team that cares about their ongoing success and development. The people are friendly, the compensation and benefits are highly competitive (including 401k, profit sharing, AND a pension), and the opportunities are endless.
Cons
Some will not like the location of the home office in small town Van Wert, but larger cities are not too far to commute from. The company could still greatly benefit from additional organizational and procedural modernization, but there is an obvious effort to make improvements wherever they can.
