Berkshire Hathaway Q3 Earnings Beat, Revenues Miss, Both Rise Y/Y

Shares of Berkshire Hathaway BRK.B gained 2.1% in the last two trading sessions as the insurance behemoth reported better-than-expected third-quarter 2025 operating earnings. BRK.B’s operating earnings of $6.26 per share increased 33.8% year over year and beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 33.2%.

Operating earnings were $13.5 billion, which increased 3.4% year over year. The increase was due to higher earnings in insurance underwriting, BNSF, and Manufacturing, service, and retailing.

Behind the Headlines

Revenues increased 2.2% year over year to $92.5 billion due to higher revenues at Insurance and Other and Railroad, Utilities and Energy. The top line, however, missed the consensus estimate by 0.1%. 

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

Berkshire Hathaway Inc. price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | Berkshire Hathaway Inc. Quote

Costs and expenses decreased 2.6% year over year to $79.1 billion, largely due to a decline in insurance losses and loss adjustment expenses, lower underwriting expense, and lower selling, general and administrative expenses. The figure was lower than our estimate of $116 billion.

Segment Performance

Berkshire Hathaway’s Insurance and Other segment revenues increased 2.4% year over year to $81.7 billion in the reported quarter due to higher premiums earned, sales and service revenues and leasing revenues. 

Insurance underwriting earnings improved more than threefold year over year to $2.4 billion, benefiting from lower losses.

Railroad, Utilities, and Energy operating revenues decreased 1.5% year over year to $13.1 billion, primarily due to higher freight rail transportation revenues and utility and energy operating revenues. The figure was lower than our estimate of $25 billion. Pre-tax earnings of the Railroad decreased 2.5% to $2.9 billion due to lower earnings at BHE as lower earnings at U.S. utilities, natural gas pipelines and other energy businesses weighed on BHE’s quarterly performance.

Total revenues at Manufacturing, Service, and Retailing increased 2.4% year over year to $54.7 billion.  Earnings from Manufacturing, Service and Retailing businesses rose 8.2% year over year to $3.6 billion.

Financial Position

As of Sept. 30, 2025, consolidated shareholders’ equity was $700.4 billion, up 7.5% from the level as of Dec. 31, 2024. At quarter-end, cash and cash equivalents were $72.2 billion, up 62.7% from the level at 2024-end.

BRK.B exited the third quarter of 2025 with a float of about $176 billion, up from $171 billion at Dec. 31, 2024

Cash flow from operating activities totaled $34.8 billion in the first nine months of 2025, up 33.9% from the year-ago period. BRK.B did not repurchase shares in the first nine months of 2025.

Zacks Rank

BRK.B currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Performance of Other Insurers

The Progressive Corporation’s PGR third-quarter 2025 earnings per share of $4.05 missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 20.3%. Operating revenues of $22.2 billion missed the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.6%. However, the bottom line increased 13.1% year over year while the top line increased 12.7%. 

Net premiums written were $21.3 billion in the quarter, up 10% from $19.5 billion a year ago. Net premiums earned grew 14% to $20.8 billion, missing the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $21.1 billion.

The Travelers Companies TRV reported third-quarter 2025 core income of $8.14 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 35.4%. The bottom line increased 55% year over year. Travelers’ total revenues increased 5% from the year-ago quarter to $12.44 billion, primarily driven by higher premiums, net investment income, fee income and other revenues. The top-line figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 0.7%.

Net written premiums increased 1% year over year to a record $11.47 billion. The underwriting gain doubled year over year to $1.4 billion. The consolidated underlying combined ratio of 83.9 improved 170 bps year over year. The combined ratio improved 590 bps year over year to 87.3 due to lower catastrophe losses and an improvement in the underlying combined ratio, partially offset by lower net favorable prior year reserve development.

W.R. Berkley Corporation's WRB third-quarter 2025 operating income of $1.10 per share beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate of $1.03 per share by 2.8%. The bottom line increased 18.3% year over year. Operating revenues came in at $3.6 billion, up 8.2% year over year, on the back of higher net premiums earned as well as improved net investment income and higher insurance service fees. The top line beat the consensus estimate by 0.4%.

W.R. Berkley’s net premiums written were $3.4 billion, up 5.5% year over year. Our estimate was $3.3 billion.  The consolidated combined ratio (a measure of underwriting profitability) remained flat year over year at 90.9. The Zacks Consensus Estimate was pegged at 89.6.

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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