Berkshire Hathaway Insurance vs Non-Insurance Revenue

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This article presents the revenue streams of Berkshire Hathaway Inc. There are two major revenue streams within the company: insurance and non-insurance.

Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance revenue consists of various sources, including premiums earned from insurance underwriting and investment income. A detailed breakdown of Berkshire’s insurance revenue is available in this article: Berkshire insurance revenue.

On the other hand, Berkshire Hathaway’s non-insurance revenue is generated from operations across various sectors, including railroads, energy, manufacturing, wholesale distribution, and service and retailing.

These revenue streams stem from multiple business segments, such as BNSF (Burlington Northern Santa Fe), BHE (Berkshire Hathaway Energy), PTC (Pilot Travel Centers), McLane Company, and others.

A detailed breakdown of Berkshire Hathaway’s non-insurance revenue can be found in this article: Berkshire Hathaway revenue by business segment.

Please note that the revenue streams provided does not account for the eliminations due to intersegment transactions. Consequently, the total sum of these revenues may slightly differ from the final amount presented in the company’s consolidated statements of earnings.

That said, let’s look at Berkshire’s insurance and non-insurance revenue.

Investors looking for other statistics of Berkshire Hathaway may find more resources on these pages:

Revenue

• Berkshire Hathaway revenue breakdown: insurance, BNSF, retail, etc.,
• Berkshire Hathaway insurance premiums written (grouped by region),
• Berkshire Hathaway insurance revenue by category,

Profit Margin

• Berkshire Hathaway insurance profit margin by category,
• Berkshire Hathaway insurance profit breakdown by category,

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Definitions

To help readers understand the content better, the following terms and glossaries have been provided.

Insurance Revenue: Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance revenue encompasses a variety of financial streams associated with its extensive insurance operations. This includes:

1. GEICO: GEICO is one of the largest auto insurers in the United States, and its revenue includes premiums earned from insuring automobiles, motorcycles, all-terrain vehicles, recreational vehicles, as well as homeowners, renters, and life insurance.
2. Berkshire Hathaway Primary Group: The Berkshire Hathaway Primary Group consists of multiple insurance operations that collectively offer a range of commercial insurance products. These include commercial motor vehicle insurance, workers’ compensation, commercial property insurance, healthcare liability insurance, etc.
3. Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group: The Berkshire Hathaway Reinsurance Group is one of the largest reinsurance groups in the world. It provides reinsurance solutions to insurance companies globally, helping them manage risk and maintain financial stability. The group includes several subsidiaries, such as Gen Re (General Reinsurance Corporation) and TransRe (Transatlantic Reinsurance Company).
4. Investment Income: Investment income refers to the earnings generated from the vast portfolio of investments. This includes dividends, interest, and capital gains from stocks, bonds, and other financial assets.

Each of these revenue sources contributes to the overall financial health and growth of Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance segment.

Non-Insurance Revenue: Berkshire Hathaway’s non-insurance revenue streams encompass operations in the railroad, utilities, and energy sectors. These sources include:

1. Railroad (“BNSF”): Operation of one of the largest railroad systems in North America through Burlington Northern Santa Fe, LLC.
2. Berkshire Hathaway Energy (“BHE”): Regulated electric and gas utility, including power generation and distribution activities and real estate brokerage activities through Berkshire Hathaway Energy Company and affiliates.
3. Pilot Travel Centers (“PTC”): Largest operator of travel centers in North America and a marketer of wholesale fuel.
4. McLane Company (“McLane”): Wholesale distribution of groceries and non-food items.
5. Manufacturing: Manufacturers of numerous products including industrial, consumer and building products, including home building and related financial services.
6. Service and retailing: Providers of numerous services including shared aircraft ownership programs, aviation pilot training, electronic components distribution, various retailing businesses, including automobile dealerships and trailer and furniture leasing.

These revenue streams contribute significantly to Berkshire Hathaway’s overall financial performance, highlighting the diverse nature of the company’s operations beyond its well-known insurance activities.

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FAQs

To help readers understand the content better, the following FAQs have been provided.

How Does Berkshire’s Insurance Revenue Stack Up Against Its Non-Insurance Revenue?

• Scale — Non-Insurance dominates overwhelmingly. Non-insurance revenue ($266.5B 3-year average) is roughly 2.6x insurance revenue ($101.4B). Non-insurance encompasses BNSF railroad, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, dozens of manufacturing subsidiaries, McLane (food distribution), retail businesses like See’s Candies and Pilot Travel Centers, and more. It’s a vast industrial and commercial empire.

• Growth — Insurance is the faster grower. Over the latest three years, insurance grew at an 8.4% average annual rate versus non-insurance at 6.9%. More tellingly, non-insurance revenue has been essentially flat in 2024 (-1.4%) and 2025 (-0.6%), while insurance has held up better.




• Mix shift — gradual but real. Insurance has grown from 23.4% of total revenue in 2016 to approximately 28% today. That sounds modest, but at Berkshire’s scale, it represents tens of billions of dollars of additional insurance revenue relative to what the 2016 mix would have implied.

• The quality distinction is where it gets interesting. Insurance revenue isn’t just premium income — it also includes the investment income generated from deploying the float. That investment income component grew from $4.5B in 2016 to $16.8B in 2024, essentially all at near-100% margin. Non-insurance revenue, by contrast, is largely pass-through at the revenue line — BNSF and BHE are capital-intensive businesses where revenue is large but margin is much lower.

• The practical implication: even though non-insurance is 72% of revenue, insurance likely contributes a disproportionately larger share of economic profit — particularly in the current high-rate environment where the float is generating record returns.

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Insight & Summary of Berkshire Hathaway’s Insurance vs Non-Insurance Revenue

The following analysis consolidates the trends observed across Berkshire Hathaway’s insurance vs non-insurance revenue for the 2016–2025 period.

• Total revenue has grown from $215.4B in 2016 to $368.4B in 2025 — a 71.0% increase over nine years — with the 3-year average of $368.0B establishing Berkshire as one of a small number of companies globally generating revenue at this scale. The growth trajectory has been broadly positive throughout, with the only contraction years being FY2020 (-3.4%, COVID) and FY2025 (-0.7%, modest cyclical softening). The FY2023 surge to $364.7B (+20.8%) — the largest single-year growth in the dataset — was driven by simultaneous strength in both insurance (GEICO recovery, investment income) and non-insurance (railroad, utilities, manufacturing, and retail subsidiaries benefiting from post-COVID normalisation). FY2024 (+1.7%) and FY2025 (-0.7%) represent a growth plateau rather than a structural decline.

• Non-insurance revenue is and has always been the dominant stream — but its structural weight has gradually compressed while insurance has grown. Non-insurance revenue averaged $266.5B over the latest three years (72.4% mix), ranging from $264.2B to $269.6B. This broad flatness in non-insurance revenue from 2023–2025 (after growing from $165B in 2016 to $269.6B in 2023) represents the maturing of Berkshire’s operating subsidiaries — BNSF, Berkshire Hathaway Energy, manufacturing businesses, and retail — which collectively produce enormous and predictable cash flows but are not high-growth businesses at this scale. Non-insurance revenue’s 3-year average growth of 6.9% is respectable but masks a near-zero trajectory in the most recent two years (-1.4% in 2024, -0.6% in 2025).

• Insurance revenue is the growth engine of the two-segment framework — and has expanded its share from 23.4% to approximately 28% over the period. Insurance revenue grew from $50.4B in 2016 to $105.1B in 2024, before easing slightly to $104.2B in 2025. The 3-year average of $101.4B and 27.6% mix share represent a business that has roughly doubled in size from 2016 while the non-insurance side grew approximately 60%. Insurance’s 3-year average growth of 8.4% outpaces non-insurance (6.9%) and total revenue (7.3%), confirming that the shift in the revenue mix — from 23.4% insurance in 2016 to a 27–28% range in 2023–2025 — reflects genuine outperformance rather than accounting reclassification. This mix shift, while modest in percentage terms, represents tens of billions of dollars of incremental insurance revenue relative to what the 2016 mix would have implied at today’s total revenue level.

• The FY2023 step-change was the most significant single-year event in the dataset for both streams. Insurance grew 15.4% to $95.0B in 2023, driven primarily by GEICO’s recovery and the surge in investment income from float. Non-insurance grew 22.8% to $269.6B — the highest non-insurance growth rate in the dataset — driven by improved BNSF results, strong Berkshire Hathaway Energy performance, and broad-based recovery across manufacturing subsidiaries. The combined effect was a 20.8% total revenue increase to $364.7B — the only year in the dataset with double-digit percentage growth in total revenue. This simultaneous strength across both segments is rare and reflects Berkshire’s unique portfolio construction: the two revenue streams are largely uncorrelated in their operational drivers, which provides natural diversification.

• The FY2024–2025 softness in non-insurance is a structural signal worth monitoring. Non-insurance revenue declined -1.4% in 2024 and -0.6% in 2025 — the first consecutive declines in the dataset outside of FY2020. BNSF’s volumes have faced competitive pressure from trucking, BHE’s utility capex is absorbing near-term earnings, and several manufacturing subsidiaries face margin headwinds from input costs. Whether this non-insurance flatness is a two-year cycle or the beginning of a more sustained deceleration will be the most important revenue question for Berkshire’s operating business investors over the next three years.

• Structural Takeaway: Berkshire’s $368B revenue base is split approximately 28/72 between insurance and non-insurance — a ratio that has shifted in insurance’s favour over nine years. The insurance stream is growing faster, carries higher margins (particularly from the float model), and is more sensitive to interest rate cycles. The non-insurance stream is vast, stable, and capital-intensive — a $266B revenue base generating highly predictable cash flows across six decades of acquired businesses. Together they produce one of the most diversified and resilient large-company revenue profiles in the global economy.

The table below combines all key Berkshire’s insurance and non-insurnace revenue metrics into a single view for the latest three fiscal years.

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Berkshire’s Insurance vs Non-Insurance Revenue

You can find the definitions of Berkshire’s insurance and non-insurance revenue here: insurance and non-insurance.

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Berkshire’s Insurance vs Non-Insurance Revenue Mix

You can find the definitions of Berkshire’s insurance and non-insurance revenue here: insurance and non-insurance.

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Berkshire’s Insurance vs Non-Insurance Revenue Growth

You can find the definitions of Berkshire’s insurance and non-insurance revenue here: insurance and non-insurance.

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Credits And References

1. All financial data presented in this article was obtained and referenced from Berkshire Hathaway’s annual reports published in the company’s investor relation page: Berkshire’s Reports.

2. Pexels Images.

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Disclosure

We may use artificial intelligence (AI) tools to assist us in writing some of the text in this article. However, the data is directly obtained from original sources (usually the quarterly and annual reports) and meticulously cross-checked by our editors multiple times to ensure its accuracy and reliability.

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