I.H.224.Right People.Progressive.96 calendar year combined ratio

用表格框住自己的白痴可以强大的不可思议。

1、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

21. “Average is going be terrible in insurance”

在保险行业，平庸将是致命的

WARREN BUFFETT: The question about insurance, about whether we become average — average is not going to be good [in] insurance. Average is going be terrible in insurance over time. It’s not —

沃伦·巴菲特：关于保险行业的提问，以及我们是否可能变得平庸——在保险行业，平庸是不可取的。随着时间推移，平庸在保险行业将是灾难性的。并不是——

It’s a commodity business, in many respects. And if you are average, you’re going to have a very poor business. You may limp along because you got a lot of capital that’s supporting the lousy business, but it’s not — it won’t be a good business, per se.

从许多方面看，保险是一个商品化的行业。如果你只是平庸的，你的业务会非常糟糕。也许你可以靠大量资本支持继续运转，但这本质上不会是一项好的业务。

But I think in GEICO, and in General Re, and some — and our other operations as well — we do not have average businesses, and there is nothing about the way the industry is going that would force us or lead us to have average operations.

但我认为，在GEICO、通用再保险（General Re）以及其他业务中，我们的业务都不是平庸的。行业的发展方式也没有任何因素会迫使或引导我们变成平庸的运营者。

I mean, we have special things we bring to the party in both cases I’ve named, and actually, in other cases as well. We have things we bring to the party that should make us considerably better than average.

我的意思是，无论是我提到的这两个案例还是其他业务，我们都有独特的优势。这些优势能够使我们明显优于行业平均水平。

It’ll show more in some periods than others, and it’ll be different in the way it is applied at GEICO or at General Re or at National Indemnity’s reinsurance operation. But none of those, in my view, will be average.

在某些时期，这些优势可能比其他时期更明显。在GEICO、通用再保险或国家赔偿再保险业务中，优势的体现方式会有所不同。但在我看来，这些业务都不会是平庸的。

But average — and there will be a lot of average, by definition — average is not going to be good.

但平庸——从定义上来说，行业内总会有很多平庸的公司——而平庸永远不是好事。

The other problem about it is average is not going to go away, either. So that is an anchoring effect, to some extent, on what even the skillful operator can achieve. I think insurance will be a very good business for us over time.

另一个问题是，平庸不会消失。这在某种程度上对即使是优秀运营者的成就也是一种制约。我认为，从长期来看，保险业务对我们来说会是一项非常好的业务。

2、《2014-02-26 Glenn M. Renwick’s Letters to PGR Shareholders》

Our Business Model.

我们的商业模式。

Target Profitability. For us, a 96 combined ratio is not a “solve for” variable in our business model equation, but rather a constant that provides direction to each product and marketing decision and a cultural tipping point that ensures zero ambiguity as to how to act in certain situations. Set at a level we believe creates a fair balance between attractive profitability and consumer competitiveness, it’s deeply ingrained and central to our culture.

目标盈利能力。对我们来说，96的综合比率不是我们商业模式方程中的"求解"变量，而是为每个产品和营销决策提供方向的常量，也是一个确保在某些情况下如何行动没有任何歧义的文化临界点。它被设定在我们认为在有吸引力的盈利能力和消费者竞争力之间创造公平平衡的水平，它深深植根于我们的文化并成为核心。

With clarity as to our business constant, we seek to maximize all other important variables and support with appropriate axioms:

在明确了我们的业务常量之后，我们力求最大化所有其他重要变量，并辅以适当的公理支持：

Grow as fast as we can subject to our ability to provide high-quality service. Our preferred measure of growth is in customers, best measured by policies in force.

在我们提供高质量服务能力的前提下尽可能快地增长。我们首选的增长衡量标准是客户数量，最好通过有效保单数量来衡量。

Extend policy life expectancy. Our preference is for the flexibility of shorter policy periods, highlighting however, the importance of retaining customers at policy renewal. Our focus is inclusive of all points throughout a customer’s tenure and is a never-ending focus, tailored for every customer segment. Our use of Net Promoter scoring provides for a much more dynamic measure, which is highly correlated to policy life expectancy, and is an internal acceptable proxy for our ultimate goal of extended life expectancy.

延长保单预期寿命。我们偏好较短保单期限的灵活性，但同时强调在保单续保时保留客户的重要性。我们的关注涵盖客户整个服务期，并且这一关注永无止境，为每个客户群量身定制。我们采用净推荐值作为更具动态性的衡量标准，该指标与保单寿命高度相关，是我们延长预期寿命这一最终目标的内部可接受代理指标。

Clarity as to our objectives means other elements of the business model must be appropriately designed to strongly support, but not necessarily amplify, the risk of maximizing all things at the same time. Our articulation of our most critical investment objective is a good example:

对目标的清晰认识意味着商业模式的其他元素必须适当设计，以强有力地支持，但不一定同时最大化所有事物的风险。我们对最关键投资目标的表述就是一个很好的例子：

Invest in a manner that does not constrain our ability to underwrite all the profitable insurance available to us at an efficient premiums-to-surplus leverage. We often refer to underwriting capacity as the protected asset and for us it is a clear determination of where the risk of leverage is best allocated.

以一种不会限制我们以高效保费与盈余杠杆比例承保所有可获利保险的方式进行投资。我们经常将承保能力称为受保护的资产，对我们来说，这是明确确定杠杆风险最佳分配位置的重要依据。

The importance of net income, earnings per share, and return on equity is never lost on us, but we view achieving strong, long-term performance of these measures as stemming from our consistent focus on the primary elements of our business model.

净收入、每股收益和股东权益回报率的重要性始终铭记于心，但我们认为这些指标的强劲、长期表现源自于我们对商业模式核心要素的一贯关注。

2、《2023-08-02 The Progressive Corporation (PGR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript》

Joshua Shanker 约书亚-尚克

And I realize how valuable the 96 calendar year is to the company. Is there a risk that right now, there's an opportunity to acquire new customers at a cost far below the long-term average and by focusing on the 96, there's a lot of growth being forgone that ultimately will be more expensive to achieve in the future?

我明白96年的综合比率对公司有多重要。现在是否有一种风险，即目前有机会以远低于长期平均水平的成本获取新客户，而专注于96年，可能会错失很多增长机会，而这些机会最终在未来实现的成本会更高？

这个问题很好，这个人在跟踪PGR的人中属于比较认真的。

Susan Griffith 苏珊-格里菲斯

Josh, that's a great question, one we obviously ask ourselves. And in fact, I was recently onboarding a new director on our Board. And I let her know that are, in my mind, as I lead the organization, there are 2 things that are sacrosanct here: our 5 core values at our 96 calendar year combined ratio.

乔希，这是一个很好的问题，我们显然也问过自己。事实上，我最近正在为董事会的一位新董事进行入职培训。我让她知道，在我的心目中，在我领导组织的过程中，有两件事情是神圣不可侵犯的：我们的五大核心价值和我们 96 个日历年的综合比率。

So I'm going to -- this is going to be a longer answer, but I think it's one that a lot of the -- a lot of your analysts -- the analysts have asked Doug. And so I think it's worth the time for -- just me to walk through a little bit how we think about this on the profit side, the growth side and the capital side.

所以我要 -- 这将是一个较长的回答，但我认为这是很多 -- 你们的很多分析师 -- 分析师都问过道格的问题。因此，我认为值得花点时间，让我从利润、增长和资本三个方面谈谈我们是如何考虑这个问题的。

So let me first begin by reiterating our core values and, of course, one is profit -- public in 1971. And ever since that date, it's been publicly talked about, probably prior to that, I just don't have the evidence in writing. But like all our other core values, profits, it's not a value of convenience, where we look to waver from it depending on the business. It's really how we guide our business.

因此，让我首先重申我们的核心价值观，当然，其中之一就是利润 -- 1971 年公开的。从那时起，它就一直被公开谈论，也许在此之前，我没有书面证据。但是，与我们所有其他的核心价值观一样，利润并不是一个方便的价值观，我们不会根据业务的发展而动摇它。这是我们指导业务的真正方式。

It's an all-in number. We don't manage to an underlying even though that's obviously something we look at, but it can't be exclusive of catastrophes or adverse development or reserve development of any kind because that's part of being the business of insurance. How it reads -- it's our profit core value states. We have a responsibility to ourselves, our customers, agents and investors to be a profitable and enduring company by offering products and services consumers value. It's part of what makes and has made Progressive so successful. We inject the discipline of putting profits before growth, and we've built a business that has delivered better than industry results consistently for a very long time.

这是一个综合数字。我们不对基础数据进行管理，尽管这显然是我们要关注的，但它不能排除巨灾、不利发展或任何形式的准备金发展，因为这是保险业务的一部分。这就是我们的利润核心价值。我们对自己、我们的客户、代理人和投资者负有责任，通过为消费者提供物有所值的产品和服务，成为一家盈利且经久不衰的公司。这也是 Progressive 取得成功的原因之一。我们注入了将利润置于增长之上的纪律，我们已经建立了一个长期持续提供优于行业业绩的企业。

保险公司自己不能赌未来的不确定，这样回答更简洁。

That consistency in which we've been able to deliver on our profit target is a significant part of the share price multiples we enjoy today. Like now when profits are under pressure, we take action quickly and aggressively. And by taking action quickly and aggressively, we not only meet our targets, we've also put business that reaches or exceeds our goals and deflect business that doesn't.

我们能够始终如一地实现利润目标，这也是我们今天享有股价倍数的重要原因。就像现在，当利润面临压力时，我们会迅速采取积极行动。通过快速、积极地采取行动，我们不仅实现了目标，还使业务达到或超过了我们的目标，并转移了未达到目标的业务。

You might remember, because you've been around for a while, over 7 years ago when I took over this role, I took the opportunity to publicly commit to some objectives that we've written about for years. And I just want to take a moment to reiterate one of those. It's outlined in our annual report in our policy section, but I think it's worth repeating.

你可能还记得，因为你已经在这里工作了一段时间，7 年多前，当我接手这个职位时，我曾借此机会公开承诺了一些我们多年来一直在讨论的目标。我只想花点时间重申其中的一个目标。在我们的年度报告中，我们的政策部分对其进行了概述，但我认为值得重复。

For us, a 96 combined ratio is not a solve for variable in our business model equation, but rather a constant that provides direction to each product and marketing decision and a cultural shipping point that ensures 0 ambiguity as to how to act in certain situations. Set at a level we believe create a fair balance between attractive profitability and consumer competitiveness, it's deeply ingrained and central to our culture.

对我们来说，96 的综合比率并不是我们商业模式等式中的一个解变量，而是一个常数，它为每一个产品和营销决策提供了方向，也是一个文化航点，确保在某些情况下如何行动不会模糊不清。我们认为，将综合比率设定在一个水平上，可以在有吸引力的盈利能力和消费者竞争力之间实现公平的平衡，它已深深扎根于我们的企业文化之中。

跟数字化经营是一致的，有利于执行，但也有负面影响，赚的不够，不利于提供更有价值的产品，苹果、微软、Google一直提升毛利率，这个产品一直就赚4分钱，那么它有没有变得更好？

I can't really stress that enough. It's part of the fabric of our culture and really embedded in everything we do along with the other 4 core values. It's true our published accident year ratios are lower than the calendar year ratios and closer to our targets. However, that's the moment in time. And I really have said several times in prior calls that uncertainty is a new normal since the onset of the pandemic, and that remains true today.

这一点我怎么强调都不为过。它是我们文化结构的一部分，与其他 4 项核心价值观一起真正融入了我们所做的一切。诚然，我们公布的事故年比率低于日历年比率，更接近我们的目标。然而，这只是时间问题。在之前的电话会议中，我曾多次说过，自大流行病爆发以来，不确定性是一种新常态，如今依然如此。

So for us, growing fast in an uncertain future, before profit is addressed it's a recipe for sustained profit pain. Many insurance companies make this misstep, and we don't intend to repeat those mistakes. But let me go to growth because I think that's the story that we're not hearing enough as well.

因此，对于我们来说，在不确定的未来快速发展，在利润问题得到解决之前，就会造成持续的利润损失。许多保险公司都犯了这个错误，我们不打算重蹈覆辙。但让我谈谈增长，因为我认为这也是我们听得不够多的故事。

保险公司自己不能参与赌博。

I wanted to remind everyone of the significant growth we've had in the first half of 2023. In 6 months, we've added 2.2 million policies in force. And we've increased written premiums by over $5 billion, and that's the equivalent of adding a top 10 Personal Auto carrier. So I would say growth this year could be defined as spectacular.

我想提醒大家我们在2023年上半年的显著增长。在6个月内，我们增加了220万份有效保单。我们的书面保费增加了超过50亿美元，这相当于增加了一个排名前十的个人汽车保险承运商。所以我想说，今年的成长可以被定义为壮观的。

Ambient shopping, and you brought that up, does remain elevated. Our agency channel is actually the best barometer for industry shopping levels because it's less affected by media expenditures. And that channel quotes were up about 16% in the quarter. If we had perfect knowledge about the future and knew that we, for sure, had adequate rates, undoubtedly, there's opportunity for significant growth today.

你提到的 "环境购物 "确实保持了较高的水平。我们的代理渠道实际上是行业购物水平的最佳晴雨表，因为它受媒体支出的影响较小。本季度，该渠道的报价上涨了约 16%。如果我们对未来有充分的了解，知道我们肯定有足够的费率，那么毫无疑问，现在就有机会实现大幅增长。

But that said, growth opportunities today do not preclude the possibility of growth opportunities tomorrow. You've probably watched in the past, and we've taken rates and other underwriting actions to focus on achieving our profitability goal. We've proven to be better positioned for strong growth in the following periods: 2022 was among the worst years for industry Personal Auto profitability and so far, 2023 has been worse.

但是话说回来，今天的增长机会并不妨碍明天的增长机会。你们可能在过去看到过，我们采取了费率和其他承保行动，专注于实现我们的利润目标。我们已经证明，我们为接下来的时期做好了强劲增长的准备：2022年是个人汽车保险行业盈利能力最差的年份之一，到目前为止，2023年的情况更糟。

能暂时停下来是因为保险是个发展缓慢的行业。

While we can't know the future, current market conditions suggest there'll be opportunity to increase market share in the future. And then just let me wrap up by saying growth can't happen without growing surplus. Our capital position today is strong, and we believe we have plenty of capital to support the premium growth we expect.

虽然我们无法预知未来，但目前的市场状况表明，未来将有机会扩大市场份额。最后，我想说，没有盈余的增长，就不可能有增长。我们现在的资本状况很好，我们相信我们有充足的资本支持我们预期的保费增长。

We have a structured growth business that is largely self-funding internally through underwriting profits and investment returns. So to bring us back full circle, our profit core value is the key to sustained growth. I know that was a long answer, but I think it's really important to be super clear and unambiguous about how we think about the business. I hope that answered your question, and hopefully, others.

我们的增长业务结构合理，主要通过承保利润和投资收益实现内部自筹资金。因此，回过头来看，我们的利润核心价值是持续增长的关键。我知道这是一个很长的答案，但我认为非常重要的一点是，我们要非常清楚、明确地了解我们是如何看待业务的。我希望这回答了你的问题，也希望回答了其他人的问题。

I.H.224.Right People.Progressive.96 calendar year combined ratio

I.H.224.Right People.Progressive.96 calendar year combined ratio

1、《2000-04-29 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting》

2、《2014-02-26 Glenn M. Renwick’s Letters to PGR Shareholders》

2、《2023-08-02 The Progressive Corporation (PGR) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript》

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