I have a similar table. Slight difference in pretax underwriting profit for 2009 for some reason, but nothing material.

One thing to consider:
Due to a quirk of accounting, premiums earned take a big temporary leap upwards the year that any big retroactive insurance contract signed.
That accounts for $7.1bn in 2007 for Equitas, and $10.2bn in 2017 for AIG.
I deduct those from the "premiums earned" column before trying to estimate the average underwriting profit that way.

With that adjustment, the average underwriting profit since 2001 (your date range) has been 3.329%.
If you go back to 1998, the average has been 2.406%.

FWIW, when trying to estimate cyclically adjusted underwriting profit, I use two methods, and average them.
They are: 2.70% of premiums earned (excluding big retroactive deals), and 1.30% of float.
I aimed for conservatism when I picked those figures, but as recent years haven't been fantastic the sum of my figures is pretty much spot on the sum of the actual figures since 2009, or since 1999.

For 2022, my cyclically adjusted estimate was $2.074 billion.

Jim

Berkshire Hathaway FAQ

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