Chubb's combined ratio has printed inside the mid-80s to low-90s for most of the last decade. In an industry where the median hovers near 100, that gap is the entire business.
The moat is not one thing. It is the combination of a global specialty footprint, a deep bench of underwriting talent that is compensated for loss ratio rather than premium growth, and a management team that has been unusually willing to say no to bad business.
The capital allocation record extends the story. Buybacks and dividends have compounded book value per share at high-single digits with low volatility. That is what an insurance equity should look like — and very few actually do.
The risk is complacency and cycle timing. Chubb has been early to signal reserve caution in commercial casualty; watch whether that discipline shows up in peer prints in 2026.
Founder of Owning Risk. Independent research on the business of insurance and the flow of risk capital.