Replacing Buffett's insurance mastermind is Berkshire's next succession mystery

Now that Warren Buffett has said Greg Abel will succeed him as Berkshire Hathaway's CEO at year-end, Berkshire watchers are turning their attention to a different succession mystery: Who will fill Ajit Jain's shoes?

- Heather Gillers

For nearly four decades, Jain has been the brains behind Berkshire's insurance powerhouse. Its profits have helped Buffett expand his conglomerate and seed his stock portfolio. A risk-pricing mastermind, Jain has crafted policies insuring Chicago's tallest building against terrorist attacks, Pepsi against having to award a $1 billion raffle prize, and baseball teams in the event that star players such as Alex Rodriguez got hurt. Along the way, he has made Berkshire billions of dollars.

"Even kryptonite bounces off Ajit," Buffett once wrote. But Berkshire's man of steel (and statutory accounting) is now 73, and last year Jain said he gave Berkshire's board a shortlist of possible successors. Whoever follows Jain will inherit a business in transition. New competitors are moving in. Berkshire's biggest insurance moneymaker in recent years has been auto coverage. Buffett and Jain declined to comment for this article, and Berkshire hasn't disclosed the names on Jain's list. But insurance-industry insiders have some ideas.

Joe Brandon, CEO of Alleghany

Brandon, 66, is on his second stint at Berkshire after the company's 2022 purchase of Alleghany, a Berkshire-like conglomerate whose business spans insurance, steel fabrication and Squishmallow plush toys. He "understands both Berkshire and insurance," Buffett said at the time of the purchase. Brandon also spent seven years running General Re, one of Berkshire's major providers of reinsurance, or insurance for insurance companies. He resigned in 2008 after federal prosecutors pressured Buffett to let him go following fraud convictions of four other former Gen Re executives. Brandon was never charged.

Todd Combs, CEO of Geico