← Back to Explore
ENTITY
🕰6 min read
🎵Wisdom Density:
Dense
🧭65 concepts
👁 -- readers
Ajit Jain
Summary
The master architect of Berkshire Hathaway's reinsurance and super-catastrophe insurance operations.
Timeline & Role
-
1992: Formally introduced in the shareholder letters as running Berkshire's reinsurance operation. Buffett states without hyperbole: "Ajit Jain... is simply the best in this business." He credits Ajit with supplying the management strength necessary to match Berkshire's financial strength in underwriting high-stakes super-catastrophe coverage globally. 1992 Letter
-
1994: Highlighted again for his oversight of Berkshire's "super-cat" policies. Buffett describes his underwriting skills as "the finest" and notes that his value to Berkshire is "simply enormous," allowing Berkshire to underwrite staggering levels of risk (like a $400 million short-term earthquake policy in a single day) that no other insurer could match. 1994 Letter
-
2001: The "Infinite Value" endorsement. In the wake of the 9/11 attacks, Buffett delivers his most profound praise of Ajit. He states that if he, Charlie, and his family were in a sinking boat and only one person could be rescued, he would say: "Save Ajit." 2001 Letter
- Context: While the rest of the world’s reinsurance market froze after 9/11, Ajit continued to price and write massive risks with speed and composure, ensuring Berkshire was the only "Ark" big enough to survive the storm.
- Philosophical Gem: Buffett notes that while Berkshire has the money, money is a commodity. Ajit’s mind is the unique asset that cannot be replicated.
-
2010: The "Irreplaceability" Declaration. Buffett states categorically that while Ajit’s operation has competitive advantages (like the "premiere insurance organization" reputation), "Ajit cannot be replaced."
- Disciplined Cadre: Buffett highlights that Ajit has built a core team of ~30 people whose discipline makes the "Jesuits look liberal."
- Philosophical Gem: Even with 60 billion in float, Buffett notes that Ajit’s ability to "act quickly in ways that virtually no other insurance organization can" is what keeps Berkshire as the singular destination for complex, massive risk. 2010 Letter, 2010 Meeting
-
2016: The "Swap Me" Endorsement. In a remarkable passage in the 2016 Letter, Buffett writes: "If there were ever to be another Ajit and you could swap me for him, don't hesitate. Make the trade!" This is Buffett's strongest public statement that his own replacement by Ajit would be an improvement for Berkshire shareholders. It is both sincere and philosophical — an acknowledgment that operational insurance genius outweighs any single capital allocation decision.
- Float: BH Reinsurance under Ajit generated $45.1B in float in 2016, up from $44.1B in 2015, with an underwriting profit of $822M — the highest of any Berkshire insurance division.
- Value Thesis: At the 2016 Meeting, Buffett was asked what the loss of Ajit would mean to Berkshire. His response: "It would be very significant." He extended this to note that several Berkshire managers (Tony Nicely, Matt Rose, etc.) had each created "billions and billions of dollars of value," and some into the tens of billions. Ajit is the apex of this cohort.
- Munger's Addition: "Ajit has a longer shelf life than we do."
-
2017: The Vice Chairman Designation. Ajit Jain, alongside Greg Abel, was officially elected to the Berkshire Hathaway Board of Directors and designated as Vice Chairman. Ajit was given formal responsibility for all of Berkshire's insurance operations. This marked a formal, public step in Berkshire's succession planning. 2017 Letter
-
2018: Buffett reaffirms the success of the new Vice Chairman structure, noting that under Jain and Abel, Berkshire is "far better managed than when I was alone." 2018 Letter
-
2025: The Final Meeting Performance. At Buffett's last annual meeting, Ajit delivered a comprehensive state of insurance: overall float cost of negative 2.2% ("somebody's given us 2.2% of cash"); GEICO achieving seven consecutive sub-80 combined ratio quarters; the new Berkshire-Zurich-Chubb joint operation for very large liability placement. On private equity in insurance, Ajit declared Berkshire had "put up the white flag" on life insurance deals, unable to compete with PE firms' leverage and credit risk appetite — but warning it "could end in tears." On autonomous vehicles: the shift from operator-error insurance to product-liability insurance, with offsetting variables (fewer accidents but higher repair costs). On AI: "a real game-changer" but Berkshire's approach is "to wait and see." Buffett's tribute: "I wouldn't trade everything that's developed in AI in the next 10 years for Ajit." 2025 Meeting
-
2026: The 2025 Letter Praise. In the 2025 Letter, CEO Greg Abel reaffirmed that Ajit's management of risk sets the gold standard for the entire insurance industry, stating that Ajit is "simply peerless at doing it." The operations returned $29 billion to Berkshire in 2025, demonstrating the strength of the capital base.
💡 Philosophical Framework
Ajit represents the marriage of intellectual capacity and emotional stability. He is the individual embodiment of high-fidelity Insurance Principles. He doesn't price based on "Experience" (what has happened); he prices based on "Exposure" (what could happen).
- 2015: The 13-Year Streak. In the 2015 letter, Buffett reports that Berkshire's insurance operations achieved a 13th consecutive year of underwriting profit — generating $26.2B in cumulative underwriting income since 2003. Ajit's reinsurance group specifically generated float of $44.1B (up from $42.5B), with underwriting profit of $421M. Buffett also articulates a methodological change: underwriting income is now stable enough to be included in Berkshire's intrinsic value per-share calculation — a validation of the operation's maturity.
- The Origin Story (2015 Meeting): Asked whether Berkshire's insurance success could be replicated, Buffett enumerated three pieces of unrepeatable luck: (1) Lorimer Davidson spending four hours with a 20-year-old Buffett on a Saturday; (2) catching Jack Ringwalt in his "five-minute window" of willingness to sell National Indemnity; (3) Ajit walking into the office on a Saturday in 1986, having never worked in insurance. "How lucky can you get?" 2015 Letter, 2015 Meeting
🔗 Links
📚 Historical Mentions & Citations (38)
Click a reference document below to expand and read the exact paragraph(s) containing this concept in the archive.
📜1992 LetterExcerpt Available▼
1992 LetterExcerpt Available
Currently, Berkshire is second in the U.S. property-casualty industry in net worth (the leader being State Farm, which neither buys nor sells reinsurance). Therefore, we have the capacity to assume risk on a scale that interests virtually no other company. We have the appetite as well: As Berkshire’s net worth and earnings grow, our willingness to write business increases also. But let me add that means good business. The saying, “a fool and his money are soon invited everywhere,” applies in spades in reinsurance, and we actually reject more than 98% of the business we are offered. Our ability to choose between good and bad proposals reflects a management strength that matches our financial strength: Ajit Jain, who runs our reinsurance operation, is simply the best in this business. In combination, these strengths guarantee that we will stay a major factor in the super-cat business so long as prices are appropriate.
📜1994 LetterExcerpt Available▼
1994 LetterExcerpt Available
Super-cat policies are small in number, large in size and non-standardized. Therefore, the underwriting of this business requires far more judgment than, say, the underwriting of auto policies, for which a mass of data is available. Here Berkshire has a major advantage: Ajit Jain, our super-cat manager, whose underwriting skills are the finest. His value to us is simply enormous.
🎙️1994 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
1994 MeetingExcerpt Available
I think I can see him — John. Don Wurster from National Indemnity. Rod Eldred from the Homestate Companies. Brad Kinstler from Cypress, our worker’s comp company. Ajit Jain, the big ticket writer in the East. And Mike Goldberg, who runs our real estate finance group and also generally oversees the insurance group. Mike. Gary Heldman from Fechheimers. Chuck Huggins from See’s, the candy man. Stan Lipsey from the Buffalo News. Chuck’s been with us, incidentally, twenty-odd years. Stan’s been working with me for well over 25 years. Frank Rooney and Jim Issler from H.H. Brown. Dave Hillstrom from Precision Steel. Ralph Schey from Scott Fetzer. Peter Lunder, who is with our newest acquisition, Dexter Shoe. And Harold Alfond, his partner, couldn’t be with us because his wife is ill. And finally, the manager that’s been with Charlie and me the longest, Harry Bottle from K&W. Harry, you here? There’s Harry. Harry saved our bacon back in 19 — what?
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hi there. My name is Lee. I’m from Palo Alto, California. In meeting Ajit Jain, I’ve been very impressed over the years. And I think I even met his parents once they came from India. Please comment on your deepest impressions of his personality and managerial skills, and also how you go about exactly keeping somebody who has such fine skills within the fold. He might go to Walt Disney someday and, you know, pull down 200 million.
📜1999 LetterExcerpt Available▼
1999 LetterExcerpt Available
There are a number of people who deserve credit for manufacturing so much “no-cost” float over the years. Foremost is Ajit Jain. It’s simply impossible to overstate Ajit’s value to Berkshire: He has from scratch built an outstanding reinsurance business, which during his tenure has earned an underwriting profit and now holds $6.3 billion of float.
Finally, Ajit Jain and his associates will be on hand to offer both no-commission annuities and a liability policy with jumbo limits of a size rarely available elsewhere. Talk to Ajit and learn how to protect yourself and your family against a $10 million judgment.
🎙️1999 MeetingReference Only▼
1999 MeetingReference Only
Mentioned in this document.
📜2000 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2000 LetterExcerpt Available
Our retroactive business is almost single-handedly the work of Ajit Jain, whose praises I sing annually. It is impossible to overstate how valuable Ajit is to Berkshire. Don’t worry about my health; worry about his.
🎙️2000 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2000 MeetingExcerpt Available
AUDIENCE MEMBER: My name is Greg Blevins (PH) from Bargetown, Kentucky. I have a question about intrinsic value. It comes from comments that you made in your annual report this year. In there, you describe the extraordinary skills of [Berkshire reinsurance chief] Ajit Jain in judging risk. When I think about Berkshire and its ability to increase intrinsic value, it seems to me that judging risk has been at least as important as an ability to calculate a net present value. So my question to each of you is, would you give us some comments on how you think about risk?
WARREN BUFFETT: OK. You made some good points. And, I — we have been, actually, in the reinsurance business, at Berkshire Hathaway, for 30 years. So it’s a business, obviously, that we’ve paid a lot of attention to. And we’ve gotten some scars from it at times. But overall, we’ve done extremely well. And the reason we’ve done extremely well is because we’ve had an absolutely sensational manager in Ajit Jain, who I wrote about, running that business. But Ajit is a good example of what somebody with brains and energy and discipline and the right temperament and some capital behind him can do in a business. It’s not the world’s most efficient business. And it never will be the world’s most efficient business, because it’s not strictly actuarial. It — All excess returns will not be competed away. There will be people that will earn very subnormal returns in the business. There will be people who get killed in the business. And that means there will be quite a deviation from the mean in terms of the results of individual insurers.
📜2001 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2001 LetterExcerpt Available
At the National Indemnity reinsurance operation, Ajit Jain continues to add enormous value to Berkshire. Working with only 18 associates, Ajit manages one of the world’s largest reinsurance operations measured by assets, and the largest, based upon the size of individual risks assumed.
📜2002 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2002 LetterExcerpt Available
Ajit Jain’s reinsurance division was the major reason our float cost us so little last year. If we ever put a photo in a Berkshire annual report, it will be of Ajit. In color!
🎙️2003 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2003 MeetingExcerpt Available
(Laughter) And I don’t see our float growing much from this point. Charlie said last time that it was impossible for it to grow, but it probably would. I don’t know whether he’ll change his opinion on that, but I think — I really think our insurance businesses are in exceptionally good shape. We have some of the best insurance businesses in the world. GEICO’s premium volume was up a little over 16 percent in the first quarter, and in April it was up just right at 17 percent. It had a 6 percent, roughly, underwriting profit in the first quarter. Gen Re, thanks to an incredible job by Joe Brandon and Tad Montross, has turned the corner in a big, big way, and it showed an underwriting profit in the first quarter. Ajit Jain made so much money I don’t want to even tell you about it. (Applause) Some of our primary operations — yeah, you should give him a hand. I mean, that — (Applause) When you get Charlie to clap, you know he’s made us a lot of money. (Laughter) And our primary businesses, particularly U.S.
AUDIENCE MEMBER: Good morning — Mr. Buffett. This is Abhishek Dalmia coming from the land of Mr. Ajit Jain, (inaudible) India. The question is —
📜2004 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2004 LetterExcerpt Available
Though the hurricanes hit us with a $1.25 billion loss, our reinsurance operations did well last year. At General Re, Joe Brandon has restored a long-admired culture of underwriting discipline that, for a time, had lost its way. The excellent results he realized in 2004 on current business, however, were offset by adverse developments from the years before he took the helm. At NICO’s reinsurance operation, Ajit Jain continues to successfully underwrite huge risks that no other reinsurer is willing or able to accept. Ajit’s value to Berkshire is enormous.
📜2005 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2005 LetterExcerpt Available
Less than a year ago, Applied entered into a large reinsurance contract with Ajit Jain, the extraordinary manager of National Indemnity’s reinsurance division. Ajit was impressed by Sid and Steve, and they liked Berkshire’s method of operation. So we decided to join forces. We are pleased that Sid and Steve retain 19% of Applied. They started on a shoestring only 12 years ago, and it will be fun to see what they can accomplish with Berkshire’s backing.
We have major reinsurance operations at General Re and National Indemnity. The former is run by Joe Brandon and Tad Montross, the latter by Ajit Jain. Both units performed well in 2005 considering the extraordinary hurricane losses that battered the industry.
🎙️2005 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2005 MeetingExcerpt Available
CHARLIE MUNGER: — a significant number of tens of millions for the first half. Now the search expenses that brought us Ajit Jain, now there was an investment that really paid a dividend. I can think of no higher return investment that we’ve ever made that was better than that one. (Applause) And I think that’s a good life lesson. In other words, getting the right people into your system can frequently be more important than anything else.
📜2006 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2006 LetterExcerpt Available
At the end of 2006, our float had grown to $50.9 billion, and we have since written a huge retroactive reinsurance contract with Equitas — which I will describe in the next section — that boosts float by another $7 billion. Much of the gain we’ve made has come through our acquisition of other insurers, but we’ve also had outstanding internal growth, particularly at Ajit Jain’s amazing reinsurance operation. Naturally, I had no notion in 1967 that our float would develop as it has. There’s much to be said for just putting one foot in front of the other every day.
In 2006, though, everything went right in insurance — really right. Our managers — Tony Nicely (GEICO), Ajit Jain (B-H Reinsurance), Joe Brandon and Tad Montross (General Re), Don Wurster (National Indemnity Primary), Tom Nerney (U.S. Liability), Tim Kenesey (Medical Protective), Rod Eldred (Homestate Companies and Cypress), Sid Ferenc and Steve Menzies (Applied Underwriters), John Kizer (Central States) and Don Towle (Kansas Bankers Surety) — simply shot the lights out. When I recite their names, I feel as if I’m at Cooperstown, reading from the Hall of Fame roster. Of course, the overall insurance industry also had a terrific year in 2006. But our managers delivered results generally superior to those of their competitors.
🎙️2006 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2006 MeetingExcerpt Available
You know, three years back, I had a chance, with my wife, my daughter, and my 6-year-old son, who is with me today, to spend a few minutes with you when you came to Houston during the opening of a new Star Furniture store. As we were posing for a family picture with you, my 6-year little one was standing just beside you, while you were sitting on a high-bar chair. And you said to this stranger, “Son” — you said — “Son, you come and sit in my lap.” Sir, Swamiji, that is your simplicity. That is your humbleness. And you talk about the contribution of Ajit Jain and ask us to bend really down if we see him, or name our children Tony to honor his contribution. Well, 40 years of selfless services to this corporation and to the humanity, you rightly deserve this distinction or this title of ”Swamiji.” There is a beautiful, beautiful — (Applause) — beautiful prayer in the Holy Vedas that says “tvam jīvehiṁ śaddhā-śataṁ.”
📜2007 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2007 LetterExcerpt Available
Since joining Berkshire in 1986, Ajit Jain has built a truly great specialty reinsurance operation from scratch. For one-of-a-kind mammoth transactions, the world now turns to him.
📜2008 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2008 LetterExcerpt Available
Our third major insurance operation is Ajit Jain’s reinsurance division, headquartered in Stamford and staffed by only 31 employees. This may be one of the most remarkable businesses in the world, hard to characterize but easy to admire.
📜2010 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2010 LetterExcerpt Available
First off is the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, run by Ajit Jain. Ajit insures risks that no one else has the desire or the capital to take on. His operation combines capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most importantly, brains in a manner that is unique in the insurance business. Yet he never exposes Berkshire to risks that are inappropriate in relation to our resources. Indeed, we are far more conservative than most large insurers in that respect. In the past year, Ajit has significantly increased his life reinsurance operation, developing annual premium volume of about $2 billion that will repeat for decades.
📜2011 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2011 LetterExcerpt Available
First by float size is the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, run by Ajit Jain. Ajit insures risks that no one else has the desire or the capital to take on. His operation combines capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most importantly, brains in a manner that is unique in the insurance business. Yet he never exposes Berkshire to risks that are inappropriate in relation to our resources. Indeed, we are far more conservative in that respect than most large insurers. For example, if the insurance industry should experience a $250 billion loss from some mega-catastrophe — a loss about triple anything it has ever faced — Berkshire as a whole would likely record a moderate profit for the year because of its many streams of earnings. Concurrently, all other major insurers and reinsurers would be far in the red, and some would face insolvency.
📜2015 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2015 LetterExcerpt Available
First by float size is the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, managed by Ajit Jain. Ajit insures risks that no one else has the desire or the capital to take on. His operation combines capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most important, brains in a manner unique in the insurance business. Yet he never exposes Berkshire to risks that are inappropriate in relation to our resources.
🎙️2015 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2015 MeetingExcerpt Available
And I told my friend Charlie Heider, I said, “Next time Jack is in the mood, be sure to get him to my office.” And Charlie got him up there one day, and we bought National Indemnity. We couldn’t have done that — we not only couldn’t have done it a day later, we couldn’t have done it an hour later. You know, that — that was lucky. And then I really got lucky in the mid ’80s when, on a Saturday, some guy came in the office and he said, “I’ve never worked in the insurance business, but maybe I can do you some good.” And that was Ajit Jain. And, you know, how lucky can you get? So, if you ask me whether we can pull off a trifecta like that again in the future, I’d say the odds are very much against it. But the whole — the whole thing in business is being open to ideas as they come along, and insurance happened to be something that I could understand. I mean, that was in my sweet spot.
📜2016 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2016 LetterExcerpt Available
First by float size is the Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group, managed by Ajit Jain. Ajit insures risks that no one else has the desire or the capital to take on. His operation combines capacity, speed, decisiveness and, most important, brains in a manner unique in the insurance business. Yet he never exposes Berkshire to risks that are inappropriate in relation to our resources.
🎙️2016 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2016 MeetingExcerpt Available
GREGG WARREN: Warren, the announcement earlier this month, that Ajit Jain would be taking over responsibility for all of Berkshire’s reinsurance efforts once Tad Montross retires from General Re, has raised some questions about not only the change in leadership structure but succession planning. Given the state of the reinsurance market, it makes sense to have Ajit overseeing both businesses, especially if the pricing environment expected to be difficult for another ten years, and there are duplicative efforts that can be streamlined. Given this move and the change in responsibilities we’ve seen at several of Berkshire’s subsidiaries the last few years, I was just wondering if you could just give us some color on how succession planning is handled at the subsidiary level, and any insight you could give us into what led you to finally decide to have Ajit oversee both of Berkshire’s reinsurance arms, and whether or not it will change the amount of work you’ll be doing on the specialty side of the business, would be greatly appreciated.
BECKY QUICK: This question comes from Tom Hinsley, a long-time shareholder from Houston, Texas, who says, “Over the years, you’ve been effusive in your praise of Ajit Jain and his contributions to Berkshire. “In the 2009 chairman’s letter you wrote, ‘If Charlie, Ajit, and I are ever sinking in a boat, and you can only save one of us, swim to Ajit.’ My question is, what if we don’t get to Ajit in time? Please comment on the impact on National Indemnity and Berkshire, and whether or not there’s another Ajit in the house.”
📜2017 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2017 LetterExcerpt Available
I’ve saved the best for last. Early in 2018, Berkshire’s board elected Ajit Jain and Greg Abel as directors of Berkshire and also designated each as Vice Chairman. Ajit is now responsible for insurance operations, and Greg oversees the rest of our businesses. Charlie and I will focus on investments and capital allocation.
📜2018 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2018 LetterExcerpt Available
Before moving on, I want to give you some good news — really good news — that is not reflected in our financial statements. It concerns the management changes we made in early 2018, when Ajit Jain was put in charge of all insurance activities and Greg Abel was given authority over all other operations. These moves were overdue. Berkshire is now far better managed than when I alone was supervising operations. Ajit and Greg have rare talents, and Berkshire blood flows through their veins.
🎙️2018 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2018 MeetingExcerpt Available
WARREN BUFFETT: I’m Warren. He’s Charlie. Charlie does most things better than I do, but (laughter) - you know, this one’s a little tough. Charlie, maybe you can chew on that a while. OK. (Laughter) At the formal meeting that will begin at 3:45, we will elect 14 directors. Charlie and I are two of them, and I would like to introduce the other 12. I’ll do it in alphabetical order. If they will stand as I announce their name. Withhold your applause. May be hard to do, but give it your best. And when we get all through, then you can let loose, but We’ll do this alphabetically beginning with Greg Abel, if you’ll stand and stay standing. Howard Buffett, Steve Burke, Sue Decker, Bill Gates, Sandy Gottesman, Charlotte Guyman, Ajit Jain, Tom Murphy, Ron Olson, Walter Scott, and Meryl Witmer. (Applause)
WALTER SCOTT: I move that Warren Buffett, Charles Munger, Greg Abel, Howard Buffett, Stephen Burke, Susan Decker, William Gates, David Gottesman, Charlotte Guyman, Ajit Jain, Thomas Murphy, Ron Olson, Walter Scott, and Meryl Witmer be elected as directors.
🎙️2019 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2019 MeetingExcerpt Available
Right, OK. And going along alphabetically, Howard Buffett, Steve Burke, Sue Decker, Bill Gates, Sandy Gottesman— (applause) — Charlotte Guyman, Ajit Jain, who is also a vice chairman, Tom Murphy, Ron Olson, Walter Scott, and Meryl Witmer. Now you can applaud. (Applause)
WARREN BUFFETT: And Ajit Jain has done a similar thing. He’s done it in a variety of ways within the insurance business. But I would not want to undo — somebody would have to give me more than $50 billion to undo everything he has produced for Berkshire. And he walked into my office on a Saturday in the mid-1980s. He’d never been in the insurance business before. And I don’t think there’s anybody in the insurance world that doesn’t wish that he’d walked into their office instead of ours, at Berkshire. It’s been extraordinary. It’s truly been extraordinary. But we have Tom Nerney. We have Tim Kenesey at MedPro. We have Tom Nerney at U.S. Lability. We have — at GUARD Insurance — we only bought that a few years ago, and that’s a terrific operation. It’s based in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania. Who would expect to find a great insurance operation in Wilkes-Barre?
📜2020 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2020 LetterExcerpt Available
The largest in value is our property/casualty insurance operation, which for 53 years has been the core of Berkshire. Our family of insurers is unique in the insurance field. So, too, is its manager, Ajit Jain, who joined Berkshire in 1986.
And now — drum roll, please — a surprise. This year our meeting will be held in Los Angeles . . . and Charlie will be on stage with me offering answers and observations throughout the 3½ -hour question period. I missed him last year and, more important, you clearly missed him. Our other invaluable vice-chairmen, Ajit Jain and Greg Abel, will be with us to answer questions relating to their domains.
🎙️2020 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2020 MeetingExcerpt Available
Ajit Jain, also, who is the vice chairman in charge of insurance, is safely in New York. And again, it just did not seem worthwhile for him to travel to Omaha for this meeting.
DEBBIE BOSANEK: I move that Warren Buffett, Charles Munger, Gregory Abel, Howard Buffett, Stephen Burke, Kenneth Chenault, Susan Decker, David Gottesman, Charlotte Guyman, Ajit Jain, Thomas Murphy, Ronald Olson, Walter Scott, and Meryl Witmer be elected as directors.
📜2021 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2021 LetterExcerpt Available
Much of our huge value creation in insurance is attributable to Berkshire’s good luck in my 1986 hiring of Ajit Jain. We first met on a Saturday morning, and I quickly asked Ajit what his insurance experience had been. He replied, “None.”
📜2022 LetterReference Only▼
2022 LetterReference Only
Mentioned in this document.
🎙️2022 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2022 MeetingExcerpt Available
WARREN BUFFETT: I’d like to introduce two fellows who really work at Berkshire. On Charlie’s left, Greg Abel, who runs all the operations outside — (Applause) — yeah. And next to him is — I ran the insurance business for about 15 years unsuccessfully. And then fortunately, the fellow on the far left came in one day — and I’ve written about it — but he came in on a Saturday. And I was opening the mail, and he said that he’d be happy to run our insurance business. I said, “Have you ever run an insurance business?” And he said, “No.” And as I’ve mentioned, I said to him, “Well, you know, I’ve never run one either, so I’m not doing so hot, so (Laughter) give it a try.” And, you know, he transformed Berkshire Hathaway. And Ajit Jain is here with us. (Applause)
AJIT JAIN: OK. Thank you, Becky. There’s no question that the personal automobile insurance business is a very competitive business. Having said that, both GEICO and Progressive are two very successful competitors in this segment. Each one of them have their plusses and minuses. But having said that, there’s no question that more recently, Progressive has done a much better job than GEICO, as you point out, both in terms of margins and in terms of growth rate. There are a number of causes for that, but I think the biggest culprit as far as Geico is concerned, and again, you rightly pointed out, is telematics. Progressive has been on the telematics bandwagon for, I don’t know, more than 10 years, probably closer to 20 years. GEICO, until recently, wasn’t involved in telematics. And it’s been only the last two years that they’ve made a very serious effort, in terms of using telematics for segmentation and for trying to match rate and risk. It’s a long journey. But the journey has started, and the initial results are promising.
📜2023 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2023 LetterExcerpt Available
I’ve told the story of our insurance operations so many times that I will simply direct newcomers to page 18. Here, I will only repeat that our position would not be what it is if Ajit Jain had not joined Berkshire in 1986. Before that lucky day — aside from an almost unbelievably wonderful experience with GEICO that began early in 1951 and will never end — I was largely wandering in the wilderness, as I struggled to build our insurance operation.
A decade or so earlier, Ajit Jain, who was born, raised and educated in India, lived with his family in Omaha only a mile or so from my home (where I’ve lived since 1958). Both Ajit and his wife, Tinku, have many Omaha friends, though it’s been more than three decades since they moved to New York (in order to be where much of the action in reinsurance takes place).
🎙️2023 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2023 MeetingExcerpt Available
And next to Greg, we have a man I ran into in 1986 and has made us look good ever since. We have the man in charge of insurance, Ajit Jain. Ajit? (Applause and cheering)
AJIT JAIN: In terms of GEICO and telematics, let me make the observation that GEICO has certainly taken the bull by the horns and has made rapid strides in terms of trying to bridge the gap in terms of telematics and its competitors. They have now reached a point where on all new business, close to 90% has a telematics input to the pricing position.
📜2024 LetterExcerpt Available▼
2024 LetterExcerpt Available
But I’ve also had many pleasant surprises in both the potential of the business as well as the ability and fidelity of the manager. And our experience is that a single winning decision can make a breathtaking difference over time. (Think GEICO as a business decision, Ajit Jain as a managerial decision and my luck in finding Charlie Munger as a one-of-a-kind partner, personal advisor and steadfast friend.) Mistakes fade away; winners can forever blossom.
🎙️2024 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2024 MeetingExcerpt Available
And Ajit Jain, sitting next to him on insurance. (Applause)
And Ajit Jain wants me to point out to everyone that you cannot take the insurance earnings of the first quarter and multiply by four. It just doesn’t work that way in insurance, and
📜2025 LetterReference Only▼
2025 LetterReference Only
Mentioned in this document.
🎙️2025 MeetingExcerpt Available▼
2025 MeetingExcerpt Available
I would like to first introduce our directors. I’m Warren Buffett, and I was born and raised here in Omaha. We have Greg Abel – he was born and raised in Canada, and we have Ajit Jain who was born and raised in India. So we have a very diverse group.
AJIT JAIN: There is no question in my mind that AI is going to be a real game-changer. It’s going to change the way we assess risk, we price risk, we sell risk, and then the way we end up paying claims.