You might recall my letter to Warren Buffett, and his response to me.? A number of my readers made some very nice offers to help me on this project.? Many thanks to you all, but I found a way to shrink the size of the project.? Look at this table:

 

NAIC #	Assets	Liabs	Surplus	Name	Group	Notes	Pct
38865	443	199	244	CALIFORNIA INSURANCE COMPANY	AU		0.2%
28258	92	49	43	CONTINENTAL NATIONAL INDEMNITY CO	AU		0.0%
14144	347	322	25	APPLIED UNDERWRITERS CAPTIVE RISK ASSURANCE COMPANY, INC.	AU	(2)	0.0%
35246	23	8	15	Illinois Insurance Company	AU		0.0%
21962	11	–	11	Pennsylvania Insurance Company	AU		0.0%
20044	1,083	346	737	BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY HOMESTATE INSURANCE COMPANY	BHH		0.6%
11673	762	336	426	REDWOOD FIRE & CASUALTY INSURANCE CO	BHH		0.3%
10855	1,065	858	207	CYPRESS INSURANCE COMPANY	BHH		0.2%
34630	459	321	138	OAK RIVER INSURANCE COMPANY	BHH		0.1%
11014	11	4	7	BROOKWOOD INS CO	BHH		0.0%
35939	9	2	7	CONTINENTAL DIVIDE INSURANCE CO	BHH		0.0%
34274	335	50	285	CENTRAL STATES INDEMNITY CO OF OMAHA	CSI		0.2%
82880	18	4	14	CSI LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY	CSI		0.0%
22063	19,090	11,072	8,018	GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES INSURANCE CO	GEICO		6.3%
22055	6,444	3,695	2,749	GEICO INDEMNITY COMPANY	GEICO		2.1%
41491	1,713	1,051	662	GEICO CASUALTY COMPANY	GEICO		0.5%
14137	239	19	220	GEICO SECURE INSURANCE COMPANY	GEICO		0.2%
14139	249	36	213	GEICO CHOICE INSURANCE COMPANY	GEICO		0.2%
14138	249	41	208	GEICO ADVANTAGE INSURANCE COMPANY	GEICO		0.2%
35882	184	70	114	GEICO GENERAL INS CO	GEICO		0.1%
22039	15,533	4,840	10,693	GENERAL REINSURANCE CORP	GenRe		8.4%
27812	15,069	4,637	10,432	COLUMBIA INSURANCE COMPANY	GenRe		8.2%
86258	3,101	2,513	588	GENERAL REINSURANCE LIFE CORPORATION	GenRe		0.5%
37362	748	182	566	GENERAL STAR INDEMNITY CO	GenRe		0.4%
11967	251	69	182	GENERAL STAR NATIONAL INS CO	GenRe		0.1%
38962	190	55	135	GENESIS INSURANCE COMPANY	GenRe		0.1%
12319	176	76	100	PHILADELPHIA REINSURANCE CORP	GenRe		0.1%
32280	130	61	69	Commercial Casualty Insurance Company	GenRe		0.1%
20931	48	26	22	Atlanta International	GenRe	Runoff	0.0%
97764	20	5	15	IDEALIFE INSURANCE COMPANY	GenRe		0.0%
31470	512	363	149	NORGUARD INSURANCE COMPANY	Guard		0.1%
42390	416	316	100	AMGUARD INSURANCE COMPANY	Guard		0.1%
14702	104	71	33	EASTGUARD INSURANCE COMPANY	Guard		0.0%
11981	42	29	13	WestGUARD	Guard		0.0%
11843	3,013	1,938	1,075	MEDICAL PROTECTIVE CO	MedPro		0.8%
42226	586	173	413	Princeton Ins Co	MedPro		0.3%
13589	14	11	3	MedPro RRG Risk Retention Group	MedPro		0.0%
20087	127,340	48,479	78,861	NATIONAL INDEMNITY COMPANY	NI		61.7%
20079	5,597	1,739	3,858	NATIONAL FIRE & MARINE INSURANCE CO	NI		3.0%
62345	10,938	8,700	2,238	BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY OF NEBRASKA	NI		1.8%
13070	1,841	692	1,149	BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY ASSURANCE CORPORATION	NI		0.9%
39136	1,203	487	716	Finial Reinsurance Company	NI	Runoff	0.6%
20052	1,419	705	714	NATIONAL LIABILITY & FIRE INS CO	NI		0.6%
42137	212	70	142	NATIONAL INDEMNITY CO OF THE SOUTH	NI		0.1%
20060	173	49	124	NATIONAL INDEMNITY CO OF MID-AMERICA	NI		0.1%
22276	90	19	71	STONEWALL INSURANCE COMPANY	NI		0.1%
37923	100	55	45	SEAWORTHY INSURANCE CO	NI		0.0%
36048	74	42	32	UNIONE ITALIANA REINS CO OF AMERICA	NI	Runoff	0.0%
11591	63	51	12	FIRST BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY LIFE INSURANCE COMPANY	NI		0.0%
10391	43	32	11	AMERICAN CENTENNIAL INSURANCE CO	NI		0.0%
13795	2	–	2	AttPro RRG Reciprocal Risk Retention Grp	NI		0.0%
25895	675	234	441	UNITED STATES LIABILITY INS CO	USLI		0.3%
26522	434	160	274	MOUNT VERNON FIRE INSURANCE CO	USLI		0.2%
35416	161	59	102	US UNDERWRITERS INSURANCE CO	USLI		0.1%
15962	171	23	148	KANSAS BANKERS SURETY CO	Wesco		0.1%
Total	223,315	95,444	127,871
			106,000	From 10K

This table lists all of Berkshire Hathaway’s domestically domiciled insurance subsidiaries, all 55-56 of them, maybe minus a few intermediate holding companies that are just shells.? The NAIC # uniquely identifies each company for the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.? Then comes the assets, liabilities, and surplus for regulatory purposes.? Then there are the groups that each subsidiary belongs to, and what percentage? of the total statutory surplus each one represents.

The table is sorted by the major subsidiary groups, and then in declining order of surplus.?? Here is the key to the groups:

1. AU = Applied Underwriters
2. BHH = Berkshire Hathaway Homestate
3. CSI = Central States Indemnity
4. GEICO (what else?)
5. GenRe = General Reinsurance
6. Guard = AmGuard
7. MedPro = Medical Protective
8. NI = National Indemnity
9. USLI = United States Liability Insurance
10. Wesco = Wesco Financial

A number of the companies are not writing new business; they are in what is called “runoff.”? Two companies may have the same name “APPLIED UNDERWRITERS CAPTIVE RISK ASSURANCE COMPANY, INC.” but are domiciled in different states.

So, back to my challenge to understand the structure of Berkshire Hathaway.? The above table makes my life easy.? Really, I only need to get the reports of the following companies:

• Berkshire Hathaway Homestate
• General Reinsurance
• GEICO
• National Indemnity (really, the one most needed)
• Medical Protective

Those five companies cover ~94% of the statutory surplus of? all of Berkshire’s insurance companies.? I can afford to get that data.? But how should I do it?

1. I can buy it though the NAIC
2. I could write Warren another letter asking for his approval to ask each company for their statutory statements.
3. I could ask each subsidiary for their statements, and see how they react.
4. I could troll the web, and see if they aren’t hiding out there.? One reader suggested that the Statements are out there on some state insurance department websites, but that would surprise me. That hasn’t been true in the past.

I am thinking of doing #2, but am open to advice.

As an aside, note that the sum of $128 billion of statutory surplus is far more than the $106 billion listed in the latest 10-K.? That is because of capital stacking, which is a form of double counting.? Lower lever subsidiaries surplus gets counted in their intermediate parent companies.? But if I eliminate all of the lower level companies, I only end up with $100 billion.

This is a different approach to Berkshire Hathaway, approaching it as a group of? insurance companies that owns businesses.? It is very different, yet successful.? When I get the data, I hope we all learn a lot.