Munger Mode rating: 4 out of 5 — Buy. Our own rating from the research report below, on business quality first: moat durability and management, with price separating the top three.
We have spent our lives saying that insurance is a commodity business in which the only durable advantage is the discipline to walk away from underpriced risk. Most insurers cannot do it. Their managers are paid on premium volume, their shareholders demand growth every quarter, and so they write bad business at the top of the cycle and reap the losses three years later. W. R. Berkley is one of the rare exceptions — a family-controlled specialty underwriter that has behaved rationally for nearly six decades, earns returns on equity north of 20%, and holds roughly $20 billion of float that costs less than nothing. This is a wonderful business. The question, as always, is price. At roughly $76 per share — about 15 times trailing earnings and 2.9 times book value — the market is paying up for that quality, and the margin of safety is slim but not absent.
Recent filings analysed: 10-Q (2026-07-31), 8-K (2026-07-20), 8-K (2026-06-26), 8-K (2026-06-11).
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