Jamie Potkul

Loews Corp.: Insurance on Long Term Upside

"Our unrealized loss position stood at $4.8 billion at quarter end, down from $5.4 billion at year end 2008. As I mentioned before, approximately 44% of our unrealized loss position is in long maturity assets that primarily support long duration liabilities such as our long-term care business.
Our portfolio showed signs of recovery in the first quarter led by tax exemption corporates. Pricing improvements were seen across all sectors except mortgage-backed and asset-backed products. The recovery continued in the month of April when the market value of our core securities increased by approximately $550 million."
From CNA Q1'09 CC

See very few similarities between FFH and L except both are run by very smart people. L is a holding company with both investments and operating cos like BRK, while ffh is mainly reinsurer relying heavily on the investment portfolio for returns.

Loews Corp.: Insurance on Long Term Upside

In my current estimation, the insurance unit only represents about 27.25% of the total NAV of Loews. Of course, this can change with price fluctuation of the underlying holdings.

Loews Corp.: Insurance on Long Term Upside

"Loews Corp. Sleep at ease while achieving a long term upside"
This is the intended title of the article. Just for the record, the editors altered the title without my input.
The insurance segment has become a much smaller component of Loews. As you can see in the article, DO and BWP make up a substantial portion of the dividend contributions (77%) to Loews.