German Farmers gets new home

NEW KNOXVILLE — Last week, German Farmers Insurance celebrated the opening of its new office with a ribbon cutting ceremony.

German Farmers, located at 208 W. Spring St. in New Knoxville, has been a local institution since 1877 and been serving the area ever since.

President Jim Wellman said construction on the project began in June of 2020 and he had been been working on the overall idea with the board of directors over the last two years.

“When discussing the future of our company, we knew we wanted to continue to grow and expand our operations,” said Wellman. “We knew we wanted to remain in New Knoxville so we weighed out options to remodel the existing building or tear down our old building.”

He said it ended up making more economical sense to tear down the old building and rebuild.

“We decided to rebuild because, again, we wanted to put up a building that had the ability for us to grow into,” said Wellman. “We were kind of forward looking for the next 10 to 20 years.”

Present at the ribbon cutting included New Knoxville Mayor Keith Leffel, State Rep. Susan Manchester and contractors that helped rebuild the office building.

Right now, German Farmers has three employees but the new building allows for growth in the future, something that Wellman said he anticipates.

“We wanted to be able to add employees. We did hire a new employee this past year so we knew that that was our plans going forward and we needed a building that better suited our needs,” he said. “We wanted to add employees and con

tinue to grow and expand our territory. We were planning for the future and we knew we wanted to expand and this was a necessary change for us in order to do that.”

Being a small company in a small town, Wellman said when they were looking to build a new office, moving out of the area was never even an option.

“It was very important for us to stay here and maintain our presence in New Knoxville,” he said. “The village was extremely flexible and willing and eager to work with us throughout this project. I really appreciated working with local contractors. People that we do business with and they made that a very rewarding experience and again, it was important to us and we take a lot of pride reinvesting back into our community.”

German Farmers is open from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday. You can reach them at 419-753-2585.

Photo provided Front row: Dean Kemper, Isaac hoying, Todd Weigandt, Jim Wellman, Sara Topp, Dan Bensman. Back row: Tom Dickman, Carolyn Bock, Kathryn Schwable, Paige Lageman, Susan Leffel, Keith Leffel, David Wolters, Susan Manchester.