Buffett previously assured shareholders that General Re was underwriting with discipline, and that assurance proved wrong.
Mixed Partly true and partly false in roughly equal measure.
Factual: Statements about the present or the past, checked against the record: did they hold up?
The second judge would not resolve this claim; the verdict shown is the first judge's.
The evidence is the person's or their organisation's own records.
Said for an organisation they lead or work for; it counts on both records.
What would count as true or false
Two parts: (1) earlier assurance; (2) proven wrong. True: Berkshire shareholder letters or annual meeting transcripts before 2002 (e.g., the 1998–2000 letters) contain Buffett's assurances that General Re was underwriting with discipline, and later results (e.g., 2001 underwriting losses, reserve problems, admitted mispricing) show it was not. Mostly true: both parts hold, but the assurances were implicit or worded somewhat differently. Mixed: only one part is clearly supported. Mostly false: no clear prior assurance, though there were indirect comments, or the discipline failure is not borne out. False: the record shows no such assurances and General Re's underwriting was disciplined.
Set before the research began.
Evidence (4)
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E1 [PDF] 2002pdf.pdf - BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. · 21 February 2003 Own record
“were penalized by an additional $1.31 billion that we recorded to correct the estimation mistakes of earlier years.”
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E2 [PDF] 2002pdf.pdf - BERKSHIRE HATHAWAY INC. Berkshire Hathaway Inc. · 21 February 2003 Own record
“underwriting discipline was restored at General Re.”
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E3 a80220e10-k.txt U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (filed by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) Own record
“generated underwriting losses of $2,843 million in 2001, $656 million in 2000 and $584 million in 1999.”
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E4 a80220e10-k.txt U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (filed by Berkshire Hathaway Inc.) Own record
“During 2001, it was determined that reserve estimates established for claims arising in prior years with respect to the North American property/casualty business were insufficient.”
Reasoning
Berkshire's 10-K filing records underwriting losses of $2,843 million in 2001, $656 million in 2000 and $584 million in 1999 (E3), though the quoted passage does not name the unit. It also says prior-year reserve estimates were found insufficient during 2001 (E4). That supports the 'proven wrong' part, and the 2002 letter's references to restoring underwriting discipline and correcting earlier estimation mistakes are consistent with it (E1, E2). None of the evidence quotes an earlier Buffett assurance that General Re was underwriting with discipline, so only one of the two parts is clearly supported.
Cite this claim
Warren Buffett, “Buffett previously assured shareholders that General Re was underwriting with discipline, and that assurance proved wrong.” (said 28 February 2002). Verdict: mixed. Reliability API, claim c_5b69cdd9d947, method 0.1.0+28da144b, dataset release v1.1.2. https://epistacklabs.com/claims/c_5b69cdd9d947
This claim is in dataset release v1.1.2, with the same verdict.
Reply to this claim
More factual claims by Warren Buffett
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Resolved true
“Howard has been a Berkshire Director for 33 years.”
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Resolved true
“My son, Howard, will succeed me as Chairman.”
Howard Buffett succeeds Warren Buffett as Berkshire's Chairman.
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Resolved true
“I have served Berkshire since 1965.”
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Mostly true
“She and her CNBC crew do a great job of both transmitting our meetings worldwide and archiving much Berkshire-related material.”
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Resolved true
“I was lucky enough to get an education at three fine universities.”
Verdicts are made automatically; how verdicts are made.