buffett's views on insurance

All investors ought to read Warren Buffett's annual letter. i suspect that most of you have read his recent scribe, if not drop everything and follow this link

http://www.berkshirehathaway.com/letters/2011ltr.pdf

I feel that this is particularly relevant to QBE shareholders given that insurance is arguably been Buffett's greatest aid to growth (as he uses insurance premium free float for investment purposes). Whilst QBE is far more conservative in their use of free float, and I don't for a moment suggest they become more adventurous, I thought what was telling was that as much as he praises the superlative performance of his insurance business managers, their performance as listed last year was not a patch on the performance of our QBE.

I think that the Australian financial press have been overly harsh on QBE's performance, and need to seriously look at relevant performance rather than absolute performance. We all may question whether we be invested in insurance, but if you take the plunge i think you would be hard pressed to find a better managed underwriter than QBE. I feel there is a little bit of the old "tall poppy" syndrome at play.I don't mind as I intend to add to my holdings and hang around for a long time.

Perhaps Warren ought to trade Ajit for Frank!

Just think how much more money Warren could make if he was to take on QBE and weave his investment magic on the free float whilst leaving them with the management of underwriting risk.