今年三月份，Berkshire Hathaway以116亿美元价格购买 Allegphany Corp，这是一家美国财产险和再保险公司。这也再次引发了我的好奇心，为什么这位非常懂保险行业的投资大师几乎不买寿险业务。恰巧有一位美国听众在之前的Berkshire年会上问过巴菲特和芒格同样的问题，我将原汁原味的对话附在文末，有兴趣的朋友可读一下。
首先，寿险业务是并不容易经营的一门生意。这点应该大家都明白，寿险保单的期限经常长达几十年，签单时定下的保费费率能否覆盖未来几十年业务经营变化的成本，这其中不确定性很大。但巴老并不认为这不是一门不值得投资的生意。
他一直不投寿险更多的考虑时寿险公司股权投资的运营属性和他在Berkshire做的投资业务重合了。就像他讲的，有了一笔值得投资的好生意出现了，到底使用谁的钱来投资这笔生意呢？他“不想一个头戴两个帽子”。
最近我一直在思考保险公司的估值，今年保险已成为我的第一重仓，油气股降为第二仓位。 保险股估值说复杂也可以很复杂，要考虑因素很多。比如财险和寿险不同业务模式，寿险业务模式下高收益产品（比如年金险）占比差别，十年无风险利率走势，债券和股权投资结构，等等。但是，保险行业投资有一个比较简单可靠的指标，那就是市净率，背后主要考虑因素就是保险公司的资产（债券，股票，保险储备）和负债都是按市价计算，合理反映了当前价值。保险公司的无形资产也很小。
目前国内保险公司股价都已破净，已进入很好的击球区间。当前低迷的股票市场意味着保险公司现在股权投资板块含金量也大大提升了，而处于历史底部区间的十年国债收益率意味着未来新保单资金的债券投资收益将会改善，保险储备金也会得到进一步释放。我对中国未来经济增长走势保持乐观预期，未来经济水平不断的提高也将推动保险收入的增长。这些因素都是我看好未来保险板块的原因。
最后附上巴菲特和芒格在股东大会上针对寿险业务投资的对话。
Q: Berkshire
has been investing in the property and casualty and reinsurance business. I
notice, except for annuities, you’ve been avoiding the life insurance business.
Do you anticipate investing in the life insurance business?
Buffet:
Sure. On the life business, we have no bias against the life business, we
just-we are in the life reinsurance business in a fairly significant way
through General Re. As you mentioned, we’ve done a little on annuities. The
problem with the life business is that it isn’t very profitable, and you
can look at the records of the big companies on that, and that a lot of the
activity in the area is, in some way, equity-related. And Charlie and I have
never wanted to get in the business of managing equities for other people. I
mean, we want our sole interest on equities to be Berkshire Hathaway itself. So
we don’t want to wear two hats. We would never go into the mutual fund
management business or any kind of investment management business because, if
we were to be managing $20 or $30 billion in the investment management
business, and we get a good idea that we can put a billion dollars in, you
know, whose money do we put in it? So, we’d rather just be wearing one
hat. And that we want that hat to be
Berkshire Hathaway. And we don’t want to be promising other people that for,
you know, half of one percent or one percent fee that they’re going to get our
best ideas, because those ideas belong to Berkshire and we’d be misleading
people if we promised otherwise. So, anything that involves an equity
component to it and that’s a big part of what’s going on in the life business
now. It’s just something we wouldn’t be comfortable being involved with. If
you look at term life insurance, we’ve looked at that, in terms of putting it
on the internet. It’s priced at rates that we find very hard, even with the
absence of commissions, to make sense. But it’s a business we understand. So
we’d be perfectly willing to be in the life insurance business if we had a way
of doing it where we thought there was reasonable profitability attached to it.Charlie, do you want to comment on the life business?
Charlie: No.
We do those structured settlements. That’s sort of like the annuity business.
And the life business we’re doing is mostly annuities and on a very low-cost
basis.
Buffet:
Yeah. Anyone wants to buy a non-equity-related annuity should go to our website
and find, in terms of the- weighting for the safety of the product and
everything, you’ll find a very, very competitive product because we, it’s a
low-cost operation. And if you’re buying it to get paid 30 years from now,
you’re certain to get paid from Berkshire, and you’re not necessarily certain
to get paid from various other entities. So we’ve got a very competitive
product there, but it’s not a big business.