The Berkshire Hathaway insurance coverage and reinsurance companies delivered as Warren Buffett had anticipated in 2023 and the outcome drives dwelling investor attraction to the sector proper now, with a shocking efficiency and $3.5 billion in earnings reported by the property and casualty reinsurance arm.
Berkshire Hathaway reported its outcomes on Saturday, learn all about them over at our sister publication Reinsurance Information.
The Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group underwriting outcome improved from nearly $1.5 billion in 2022 to $1.9 billion in 2023, however the true star of this was the P&C aspect of the enterprise, the place property disaster reinsurance returns can have been a big driver.
As we defined again in November, the guess that Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway P&C reinsurance companies had made on underwriting extra property disaster dangers was paying off in 2023.
That guess continued to repay by way of the ultimate quarter, with international disaster loss exercise nonetheless inadequate to dent the earnings juggernaut that’s the Berkshire P&C reinsurance arm.
By the tip of 2023, the pre-tax underwriting revenue for the P&C reinsurance division at Berkshire Hathaway had reached greater than $3.5 billion, properly up on the prior 12 months’s $2.18 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway grew the P&C reinsurance ebook considerably, with the acquisition of TransRe one driver, serving to P&C reinsurance premiums written attain $22.36 billion for the 12 months in 2023, up 32% on the earlier 12 months’s $16.96 billion.
Berkshire Hathaway’s P&C reinsurance premiums at the moment are up by 58% since 2021, as Warren Buffett’s underwriting divisions have capitalised on arduous reinsurance market situations.
“The rise in 2023 mirrored internet will increase in new property enterprise and better charges,” Berkshire reported.
Reiterating that, “We have now written appreciable ranges of property enterprise in recent times and we usually don’t retrocede the dangers we assume. Our periodic underwriting earnings are topic to appreciable volatility from important disaster loss occasions.”
Property disaster reinsurance returns have pushed Berkshire Hathaway’s re/insurance coverage section leads to 2023, driving dwelling the engaging state of the market.
The mixed ratio on this fell to 84% for 2023 though underwriting bills rose by 6%, serving to Berkshire’s P&C reinsurance enterprise attain the $3.5 billion of pre-tax earnings mark.
In his letter to shareholders, Warren Buffett defined that his forecast for a worthwhile insurance coverage 12 months got here true saying that P&C specifically “carried the day.”
Again in Might he had stated that “insurance coverage would seemingly do properly, each as a result of its underwriting earnings are usually not correlated to earnings elsewhere within the financial system and, past that, property-casualty insurance coverage costs had strengthened.”
Summing up on how 2023 went, Buffett defined, “Insurance coverage got here by way of as anticipated.”
Commenting with regards to unfavorable surprises and the way they will come up in enterprise, Buffett stated, “We repeatedly get these in our insurance coverage enterprise, the place our primary product is threat assumption, and they’re going to happen elsewhere. Berkshire can maintain monetary surprises however we won’t knowingly throw good cash after dangerous.”
Buffett can be bullish on Berkshire Hathaway’s skill to proceed rising into the insurance coverage and reinsurance market.
He commented, “Our insurance coverage enterprise carried out exceptionally properly final 12 months, setting information in gross sales, float and underwriting income. Property-casualty insurance coverage (“P/C”) gives the core of Berkshire’s well-being and development. We have now been within the enterprise for 57 years and regardless of our practically 5,000-fold enhance in quantity – from $17 million to $83 billion – now we have a lot room to develop.”
He additionally stated on re/insurance coverage, “Past that, now we have realized – too usually, painfully – an excellent deal about what varieties of insurance coverage enterprise and what kind of folks to keep away from. A very powerful lesson is that our underwriters might be skinny, fats, male, feminine, younger, outdated, international or home. However they will’t be optimists on the workplace, nevertheless fascinating that high quality could usually be in life.
“Surprises within the P/C enterprise – which may happen many years after six-month or one-year insurance policies have expired – are nearly all the time unfavorable. The business’s accounting is designed to acknowledge this actuality, however estimation errors might be enormous. And when charlatans are concerned, detection is usually each gradual and expensive. Berkshire will all the time try and be correct in its estimates of future loss funds however inflation – each financial and the “authorized” selection – is a wild card.”
Warren Buffett stays as dedicated to the reinsurance enterprise as ever and the 2023 funding return exhibits that one aspect of the enterprise retains on delivering, with insurance coverage funding earnings reaching nearly $9.6 billion for the 12 months, up by 48% on 2022.
However, the underwriting aspect is delivering simply as properly and Warren Buffett’s guess on property disaster threat clearly paid dividends in 2023, with the expansion of the P&C aspect largely property targeted and the unit reporting file premiums and earnings as properly.
