2011 Annual Meeting Speeches

April 19 , 2011

President and CEO Terrence W. Cavanaugh

In this day and age, few people come to these meetings expecting to hear something new. If you’ve read the company’s annual report or listened to the investor calls, you already have a pretty good idea of what happened during the year.

What you don’t get between the lines of the shareholder letter though, is a true feel for the people who produce these results. Here, face to face, you have another opportunity to gauge the commitment and confidence of the board, the leadership team, and the Employees you see coming and going right outside these doors.

We had a strong reminder over the weekend that these are not only the Employees who produce results – but who are the face of ERIE in time of great need. As you know, areas of North Carolina and Virginia were hit by severe storms and tornadoes. Te storms devastated properties and left at least 43 dead and hundreds injured. We’re also reaching out through the American Red Cross with a donation to help ease the immediate suffering in one of the hardest-hit areas around Raleigh.

From the beginning, ERIE’s founders maintained the importance of building a relationship company. Their approach encompassed all ERIE stakeholders – Customers, Agents, Employees and Shareholders – starting with the original 90 stockholders whose names went into the 10-cent pencil tablet H.O. Hirt used as the prospectus.

I want to thank you for coming today and allowing us to again affirm the personal connection with the company you invest in and the results we produce. Read the full speech

Executive Vice President and CFO Marcia A. Dall

As Tom mentioned, tomorrow, April 20, is the 86th anniversary of Erie Insurance. This is a remarkable achievement. Statistically, most startup companies fail in the first year – very few, less than 30 percent – make it beyond year five. And yet, H.O. Hirt and O.G. Crawford, an unlikely pair of entrepreneurs, beat the odds despite some very challenging circumstances – aggressive competitors, a rapidly changing regulatory environment and the onset of the Great Depression to name just a few.

We are charged with preserving the legacy that our founders built together with ERIE board members, Employees and Agents. Throughout our 86 years, The ERIE and its people have confronted many challenges and opened the door on many opportunities in environments like the one we are operating in today.

At the start of 2010, our economy was struggling to come out of the recession and that continued throughout the year. The effects of the recession, while slowing, still linger – with high unemployment and foreclosure rates remaining a challenge for the U.S. economy. With interest rates near all-time lows, the bond market has suffered with fixed income investments experiencing significant declines in absolute yields.

On the positive side, by the end of the year, personal consumption began to increase and the U.S. started to see real economic growth. The U.S. stock market rallied back in 2010 as well, ending the year at a near all-time high.

This greatly benefited the financial results of the insurance sector. Read the full speech

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