Mercury Insurance Group is an American automobile and property insurance company founded by George Joseph in 1961. The company is headquartered in Los Angeles, CA. George Joseph founded Mercury Insurance in 1961 after working in the industry for a few years. Created to be a low cost alternative to larger insurance companies, Mercury Insurance found a profitable niche by offering private passenger automobile policies at a reduced premium for better than average risks. The key to this strategy was, and continues to be very tight underwriting and tight claims handling. The company operated solely in California until 1990, and since then has started expanding into a few other tough market states where nationwide carriers had ceased to operate.
The USC Trojans are the athletic teams representing the University of Southern California in Los Angeles, California. While the men's teams are nicknamed the Trojans, the women's athletic teams are referred to as either the Trojans or Women of Troy . The program participates in the Pacific-12 Conference and has won 116 team national championships, 94 of which are NCAA National Championships. USC's cross-town rival is UCLA, with whom there is fierce athletic and scholastic competition. However, USC's rivalry with Notre Dame predates the UCLA rivalry by three years. The Notre Dame rivalry stems mainly from the annual football game played between these two universities and is considered the greatest intersectional rivalry in college football.