Warren Buffett at Berkshire Hathaway’s annual meeting had to answer for Geico’s poor recent performance.
Buffett spends the day taking questions from journalists—including Fortune’s own emeritus reporter Carol Loomis—analysts, and shareholders.
The first question from Cliff Gallant, one of the analysts on the stage with Buffett, was about why rival Progressive has been taking market share from Buffett’s auto insurer in the past year.
Buffett said that Geico passed Progressive (PGR) a few years ago in volume, and he expects Geico’s share will increase in the future. He says that Berkshire made a bet a number of years ago that Geico’s platform was better than Progressive, and he still believes that, though he said it was true that Geico lost ground to the its competition last year.
“I believe that you will see the same trends this year,” says Buffett.
Buffett also said the number of accidents and vehicular deaths have been on the rise recently, which is a trouble for all auto insurers.
“I don’t think it’s a tragedy that a competitor got a better rate in one time frame,” says Charlie Munger, Buffett’s long-time No. 2. “We don’t worry about the fact that someone else had a better quarter.”
