Pros
The biggest pro is weekly pay for the current pay period on Thursdays. The benefits are decent benefits although they get more expensive each year. PTO time is ok, but not as lucrative as it used to be. Most regular employees are very friendly. The corporate culture has improved slightly over the last couple of years, but the home office staff still is not fully appreciated. You will not have too many problems if you remain professional in your attitude and appearance, remain tactful and diplomatic, take full accountability for your work--both good and bad, and no matter what maintain your business ethics and document everything you are told to do. The work week is only 37.5 hours.
Cons
The pay is very low compared to similar jobs at other companies. It's all about who you know and how well you play the game of office politics. Upper management, esp. Kemper Corp. in Chicago is mainly concerned with paying dividends to shareholders even though profit margins have shrunk considerably in the previous few years. There are quite a few coworkers that love to gossip and manipulate others. You have to document everything to cover yourself just in case because very few at Kemper take responsibility for their mistakes and will point the finger at anyone but him or herself. The agents in the field are valued much more than the home office staff although the new president appears to be moving towards a more balanced attitude. The absolute worst department is the HSIS--due to the micromanaging executive SVP. I would only recommend working in Legal, Consumer Affairs, Treasury, or Financial. Recently, the company outsourced Payroll and a portion of HR. It's been a nightmare because they outsourced some of it to Texas and all of the payroll journals are now down by incompetent individuals in India. They laid off most of the Payroll Dept. to save a few bucks, but it has actually caused much more work for the home office.