Buffet Sees Slow GEICO Growth, Trims Ads.(Brief Article)

National Underwriter Property & Casualty-Risk & Benefits Management, March, 2001 by SCLAFANE, SUSANNE

You'll see less of GEICO's gecko and other characters pitching auto insurance in 2001, but lowering advertising costs still might not brighten the GEICO underwriting profit picture this year, according to Berkshire Hathaway Chairman Warren Buffett. In his annual report to shareholders last week, Mr.

Buffett said policyholder growth at Berkshire's Washington-based GEICO "slowed to a halt" in 2000. Pointing to the fact that a well-entrenched competitor State Farm, is hanging on to its share of the personal auto market with a willingness to bear underwriting losses, Mr. Buffett used words like "over time" and "inevitably" to predict when GEICO's low-cost business model would allow it to make a dent in the Bloomington, Ill.-based mutual's market share. For...

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