(Bloomberg) – Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc. hit a speed bump in the first quarter as insurance units posted an underwriting loss, overshadowing gains at the company's railroad and energy business.
Over the past five decades, he's transformed Berkshire from a struggling textile business into a financial powerhouse with insurance, energy, retail, transportation and manufacturing units. With an eye toward value and long-term thinking, his stock picks and acquisitions have helped propel steady increases in the company's earnings.
|'Insurance results can be volatile'
Buffett has said there will be blips in that record, in part because insurance results can be volatile. First-quarter operating profit slipped 4.8 percent to $3.56 billion, the company said Friday in a statement.
The result was driven by underwriting losses at Berkshire's namesake reinsurance group and General Re unit, which both incurred costs tied to a cyclone in Australia. Pretax profit fell 34 percent at Geico, which sells auto coverage.
Recommended For You
Want to continue reading?
Become a Free PropertyCasualty360 Digital Reader
Your access to unlimited PropertyCasualty360 content isn’t changing.
Once you are an ALM digital member, you’ll receive:
- Breaking insurance news and analysis, on-site and via our newsletters and custom alerts
- Weekly Insurance Speak podcast featuring exclusive interviews with industry leaders
- Educational webcasts, white papers, and ebooks from industry thought leaders
- Critical converage of the employee benefits and financial advisory markets on our other ALM sites, BenefitsPRO and ThinkAdvisor
Already have an account? Sign In Now
© 2025 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.
