Entrepreneurship and Innovation in Automobile Insurance: Samuel P. Black, Jr. and the Rise of Erie Insurance, 1923-1961 / Edition 1

by Samuel P. Black, John Paul Rossi

Overview

Entrepreneurs play a central role in economic growth and development, but how they do so is the subject of considerable debate. This book explains that process through an historical case study of an automobile insurance entrepreneur, Samuel P. Black, Jr., and Erie Insurance, the company he helped build. It also recounts the largely untold history of American automobile insurance.

One of this study's central themes is the role of innovation in the entrepreneurial process. The rise of Erie Insurance from a four-person enterprise in Erie, Pennsylvania, in 1925 to the fourteenth largest property-casualty insurer today was the result, in part, of Black's relentless push to innovate. His continual efforts to cut costs, develop new products, satisfy customers, increase sales, and improve operations, all contributed greatly to the company's growth. A second theme is the automobile's dramatic impact on modern America. Its takeover of mass transportation provided the basis for the development of the automobile insurance industry and created many of the opportunities that Black and Erie Insurance capitalized on. These themes combine in the history of Black and Erie Insurance to illuminate the dynamic process by which the cultural, social, economic, and technological environment creates opportunities that entrepreneurs and entrepreneurial firms exploit, and how entrepreneurial actions stimulate economic growth.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781138863842
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	06/30/2020
Series:	Garland Studies in Entrepreneurship
Pages:	304
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x (d)

About the Author

Samuel P. Black is one of the pioneers of automobile insurance companies. John Paul Rossi is in the Department of Human and Social Sciences at Penn State University.

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgments xiii

Chapter 1 Introduction: Entrepreneurship-Theory and Practice 1

Chapter 2 The Motor Age 37

Chapter 3 Getting Ahead 59

Chapter 4 The Romance of Claims 81

Chapter 5 "Push This Thing Along": The Rise of Erie Insurance 99

Chapter 6 The Challenge of the Depression 127

Chapter 7 Adversity and Innovation 163

Chapter 8 Sales, World War II, and Managing the Northwest Territories 197

Chapter 9 Underwriting and Problems of Growth 231

Chapter 10 Questions of Strategy and Rewards 265

Chapter 11 Epilogue-Samuel P. Black, Jr., Entrepreneurship, and Erie Insurance, 1961-1997 305

Bibliography 319

Appendices 335

Index 349