Lehigh Mutual Insurance Company | Company Profile/History

The Mutual Insurance Company of Lehigh County(the Company / aka Lehigh Mutual Insurance Company) and its wholly owned subsidiary, Mutual Endeavors, are insurance related companies serving the northeastern section of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. During the past few years the Company has undergone substantial changes in order to enhance the prospects for profitability and to return surplus to levels enjoyed during the early 1990’s. It is the continuation and further development of these goals and action items supporting profit initiatives that is the focus of this business plan.

The Company has approximately 80 independent agencies submitting personal and commercial lines products in Pennsylvania. The Company issues a limited number of assessable policies with the assessment limited to one additional annual premium.

Underwriting rules and risk selection criteria are based on conservative philosophies derived from years of experience accumulated by the Company’s management and staff, and from underwriting guidelines of companies that have been successful in the regional marketplace. The Company uses the services of AAIS for forms and statistical data and rates that generally follow those filed by major competitors in the region as individual product line circumstances dictate.

The Mutual Insurance Company of Lehigh County was organized in 1848 via a limited charter by a special act of the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania as The Mutual Fire Insurance Company of Lehigh County. The present name was adopted in 1956.

Day-to-day operations were originally conducted from a home office located in the Trexlertown area, just west of Allentown. The company then relocated to the Allentown Business District where they rented office space at 913 Hamilton Street until purchasing a parcel of land and constructing a building in the late 1940’s. This parcel of land at 1047 Hamilton Street, which was purchased in 1948, was occupied by an ice cream shop and a few homes. The company demolished those structures and salvaged some of the building materials, especially the brick, and built what is now the home office. In 1984, the company demolished two remaining tenant-occupied homes and transformed this space into additional parking. In 1996, the company completely renovated the building and in the process changed it from a double occupancy to a single occupancy.

Mutual of Lehigh writes business in Lehigh, Northampton, Carbon, Monroe, Eastern Berks and Northern Bucks Counties. The company has developed a niche in urban homeowner’s business in Allentown, Bethlehem and Easton, also known as the Lehigh Valley, the third largest metropolitan area in the state of Pennsylvania.

Today the company has a staff of five employees. Mr. Michael Yeager is President/CEO.

Lehigh Mutual Insurance Company is rated A (Exceptional) by Demotech

The Mutual Insurance Company of Lehigh County shares members of the board of directors, officers and employees with Mutual Endeavors. The members of management and board of directors are discussed below.

The president and Chief Executive Officer of Mutual Insurance Company of Lehigh County is Michael A. Yeager, an insurance professional with over 23 years of experience in the property casualty insurance industry. Mr. Yeager has served the majority of his insurance career with the Company, beginning as an underwriter and progressing through various positions to President & CEO. He also serves as president of the Company’s wholly owned subsidiary, manages the claims and underwriting functions and has been responsible for appointing those agents currently writing business for the Company.

Mr. Yeager’s knowledge of both the agents and the market is excellent and he is well known and respected within the mutual insurance industry in Pennsylvania, Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey. From 1990-1993, and again from 1996 through 2001, he had served as a member of the Board of Directors of the Pennsylvania Association of Mutual Insurance Companies (PAMIC), a regional mutual insurance industry association, and as chairman in 2000. Mr. Yeager is a founding Board member of the Urban Insurance Partners Institute and is the Immediate Past Chairman of that organization. He also serves as Vice Chairman of the Urban Insurance Institute.

Frederick G. Rummel serves as the Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Mutual Insurance Company of Lehigh County. Mr. Rummel has served on the Board for the past 25 years and as Chairman since 1992. He is the President & CEO of Rummel Group, Inc. a real estate investment group.

John E. Freund
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Attorney and Partner
King, Spry, Herman, Freund & Faul, LLC.

Thomas C. Reichl
Whitehall, Pennsylvania
Owner
TCR Enterprises, a diversified investment company

William P. Reiss
Allentown, Pennsylvania
Owner
William P. Reiss, CPA

Frederick G. Rummel
Whitehall, Pennsylvania
President
Rummel Group, Inc.

Anthony G. Stellar
Schnecksville, Pennsylvania
President
Stellar Construction Co.

Michael A. Yeager
Allentown, Pennsylvania
President & CEO
Mutual Insurance Company of Lehigh County

Bruce Jackson
Zionsville, Pennsylvania
Integra Claims Services

Claims on insurance policies by the Company are usually investigated and settled by one of four adjustment companies(see External Resources). Mr. Yeager serves as the Company’s claim manager and has over 20 years of insurance industry claims experience. He has managed the Company’s claims function for over 20 years. In his capacity as claims manager Mr. Yeager review the adjusters’ reports and authorizes payments in a prompt manner in order to make the claims process a positive experience for agents and policyholders.

Diane Bareuther has over 30 years of experience in both personal and commercial lines. She has experience in rating, underwriting, marketing, and managing both the underwriting and marketing function. In addition, Ms. Bareuther and Mr. Yeager are responsible for the supervision and appointment of all independent insurance agents.

The Company has a wholly owned subsidiary, Mutual Endeavors(ME), which is licensed as a property casualty insurance agency in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania and which is valued for financial statement purposes under the equity method of accounting. ME is operated in support of the strategic initiatives of the Company and in this capacity is principally used to provide additional insurance markets for the agents of MICLC. There are no plans at this time for the Company to solicit business directly from the general public; however, Mutual Endeavors will be available to purchase books of existing Lehigh Mutual business from agencies should those agencies decide to move or sell their business or close their operations. As Mutual Endeavors has no employees, it is serviced by the officers and employees of Lehigh Mutual through an expense sharing agreement between the two organizations that allocates costs and expenses.

As a result of the limited number of full-time employees, the Company relies heavily on outside consultatnts and advisors to provide technical assistance and support. This permits the Company to operate its services and administrative functions more efficiently. In addition, complete or partial outsourcing of selected services occurs, based on need, in order to maintain the high level of competency standards expected in today’s marketplace. The Company has selected, from time to time, the following service providers to assist it in the following areas:

Professional Claims Services, Inc. (PCS)
1621 N. Cedar Crest Blvd., Suite 120
Allentown, PA 18104

Town and Country Computer Services LLC
3418 Carman Road
Schenectady, NY 12303-5394

The Glenmede Trust Company
One Liberty Place
1650 Market Street, Suite 1200
Philadelphia, PA 19103

King, Spry, Herman, Freund, and Faul, LLC
1 Bethlehem Plaza, Suite 700
Belthlehem, PA 18108

American Association of Insurance Services (AAIS)
1035 South York Road
Bensenville, Ill. 60106

We continue to maintain an open market place for our agents within the confines of our underwriting criteria. Personal lines and specialty commercial lines opportunity abound in the insurance marketplace and we strive to take advantage of them. Our success centers around the commitment by the Board of Directors and staff to provide the finest in services while maintaining affordable insurance to its policyholders and agents. We are committed to continue to reduce all expenses with no apparent service breaks to our agents and policyholders. We continue to be concerned with the medical malpractice lines of business currently written in Pennsylvania and their inclusion in the all other account of the Pennsylvania Insurance Guarantee Association (PIGA) and ultimately their effect on our bottom line. We continue to monitor the political climate in Pennsylvania as it attempts to correct the perceived market place inadequacies.