Berkshire Hathaway News

GEICO Gets Progressive, Joins Auto Insurers Offering Telematics

Berkshire Hathaway’s GEICO auto insurer has joined the ranks of carriers using telematics to track and improve driver behavior—after resisting for years. GEICO has been one of the few among the top 10 largest personal auto insurance carriers without a …

Insurance, Economy, Tariffs Weigh on Berkshire Hathaway

Berkshire Hathaway Inc on Saturday said its quarterly operating profit fell more than analysts expected, as weakness in insurance underwriting, a slowing economy and trade woes weighed on the conglomerate run by billionaire Warren Buffett. Berkshire’s auto insurer Geico suffered …

Ethiopian Crash Could be Largest Non-War Aviation Reinsurance Claim: Willis Re

LONDON — Liability claims related to the Ethiopian Airlines crash and the grounding of Boeing 737 MAX 8 aircraft could be the largest non-war aviation reinsurance claim on record, hitting reinsurers’ profitability, reinsurance broker Willis Re said. The crash of …

Berkshire Profit Surges as Buffett’s Insurers Weather Storms

Berkshire Hathaway Inc.’s insurers dodged the worst of losses caused by Hurricane Florence as the businesses kept up their rebound from a rough 2017. The company’s operating profit doubled last quarter, capitalizing on trends ranging from more train traffic on …

Disaster Losses Cut Q3 Berkshire Hathaway Profits by 43%

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. said Friday that its third-quarter profit fell 43 percent because of a $1.4 billion insurance underwriting loss from Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria and earthquakes in Mexico. The Omaha, Nebraska-based conglomerate owns Geico and several …

Berkshire Hathaway Likely to Post First Losses in More Than a Decade

The insurance business has been good to Warren Buffett. For decades, his stable of carriers at Berkshire Hathaway Inc. have provided him billions of dollars to invest. They’ve also turned an underwriting profit every year since 2002. That streak could …

Buffett Says Hurricane Harvey Damage Will Linger

Billionaire Warren Buffett says the storm damage in Texas is staggering, but he isn’t sure yet how much insurance companies will have to pay in claims. Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway conglomerate owns Geico and several other insurers, so his company will …

Gen Re Names Rotatori CEO, Clark to Become President

Gen Re, a Berkshire Hathaway Company, announced several planned organizational changes prompted by Gerard Lynch’s announcement that he will be retiring December 31, 2014. Lynch has been chairman and CEO since founding New England Asset Management (NEAM) in 1984. Effective …

Buffett Doesn’t Think Climate Change Causing More Disasters

Warren Buffett says the rate of disasters that Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance companies see hasn’t changed because of extreme weather. Buffett said on CNBC Monday that he hasn’t made any change in the way he calculates the likelihood of a catastrophe …

Berkshire’s Specialty Insurer to Sell Business-Crisis Coverage

Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc. will begin selling coverage through its specialty insurance unit to businesses to help manage costs of responding to reputation-damaging events. The new coverage provides as much as $100,000 to hire a crisis-management consulting firm to …