Warren Buffett Sours on Reinsurance; Here's What He Did

U.S. stocks are posting decent gains on Wednesday, with the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 up 0.85%, and 1.06%, respectively, at 12:30 p.m. EDT.

Image source: 30 St Mary Axe, the London HQ of Swiss Re.Photograph Andrew Dunn. Reproduced under a Creative Commons license.

Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett isn't impressed with the prospects for the reinsurance industry so he's reallocating some of Berkshire's precious capital to reflect that. Yesterday, Munich Re, the world's largest reinsurer, disclosed in a statement that Berkshire Hathaway and its subsidiary National Indemnity Company have reduced their combined shareholding from roughly 12% to 9.7%. Berkshire remains Munich Re's largest shareholder.

At this year's Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting, Buffett described a dour outlook for reinsurers:

Buffett explained his prognostication:

Reinsurers are being caught between two adverse trends, both of which are linked to the historically low interest rate environment in the aftermath of the financial crisis. On the one hand, a flood of new capital seeking out new, uncorrelated sources of return has hurt pricing and, on the other, reinsurers are struggling to earn a return on their investments in a yield-starved world.

This didn't happen overnight. Two years ago, Manfred Seitz, managing director of international reinsurance at Berkshire Hathaway, told a roundtable of reinsurance industry executives that "prices in a number of areas are below where they should be. It's a buyers' market: There is a large number of providers and a lot of capital looking for returns."

Berkshire Hathaway itself has a substantial reinsurance business, of course, but Buffett was able to provide some comforting news to shareholders at last May's meeting, emphasizing that "there are certain things in the reinsurance market that only Berkshire can do." To back that up, he said Berkshire had written eight reinsurance contracts with premiums exceeding a billion dollars -- no-one else in the industry had written any.

Because they are, to quote Berkshire Vice-Chairman Charlie Munger, "playing the game for the long pull" and practice extreme discipline with regard to pricing, reinsurance will remain a profitable activity for Berkshire Hathaway. For the rest of the industry, however, it appears the buffeting will continue.

The article Warren Buffett Sours on Reinsurance; Here's What He Did originally appeared on Fool.com.

Alex Dumortier, CFA has no position in any stocks mentioned. The Motley Fool owns shares of and recommends Berkshire Hathaway. Try any of our Foolish newsletter services free for 30 days. We Fools may not all hold the same opinions, but we all believe that considering a diverse range of insights makes us better investors. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.