> I've yet to see a capital markets discussion with an InsuranceCo where someone says, "Oh! Your combined ratio under normal conditions is at/over 100%. Good job management team!" Please provide some sources supporting combined ratios >= 100% as OK/sustainable, or this will continue to be circular.

Dude, your source shows that over a multi-decade time-span the industry loses underwriting money more often than it makes money (12/20 years), and if you tally it out in the long run, they are net negative (101.5 dollars paid per 100 in premium income). https://www.spglobal.com/marketintelligence/en/news-insights...

Of course they aren't going to congratulate themselves on losing money on underwriting in those words. The way you will see it phrased is congratulating themselves on increased premium income from sales, while elsewhere in the report acknowledging underwriting losses. Maintaining the same rate of underwriting loss while increasing sales will also increase the total loss, but it is not at all rare to see an investor report congratulating management on increased sales in a circumstance where a larger loss was made.

> Dude, your #1-5 just listed reasons why the core insurance operations have to be profitable, or they cease operations. That's making my point. You made no reference to their investing activities overcoming losses as you implied. If they can't price risk effectively in their core business "under normal conditions," then they will get competed out of the market.

You asked me to address those specific circumstances, which I noted are largely separated from the aggregate of all circumstances and markets that drive the insurance industry as a whole. You are missing my big point; the insurance industry do not get rich by charging you premiums higher than your claims. Any profits they make are slim, and normally eaten up by losses in the long term (again, see your own source). The insurance operations don't have to be profitable, and they aren't according to both your source and me.

They have to be predictable so that you can price your premiums in a way that the underwriting losses aren't greater than your investment income. Those reasons I listed are what make those policies unpredictable, un-priceable effectively, and therefore not an acceptable way to lose money.

I didn't address the fact that they make their losses back in investments because it was the whole point of my original post, and all of the sourcing that I have done; it is broadly made in the quarterly reports I linked to, as well as the letters to investors from Warren Buffet.

Per your own source and decades of investor documents, the industry posts underwriting losses constantly, and makes their profits by investing the float. It isn't a big secret.