Higher Interest Rates Are Boosting Fairfax

While its primary business is insurance, Fairfax is in some ways more of an investment fund. Chairman and CEO Prem Watsa has a long history of bold investment bets and has shown a willingness to be unorthodox when it comes to portfolio construction. As a result, compared with other insurers, the company's results tend to be driven more by results on the investment side. We're somewhat skeptical of this approach, as we believe disciplined underwriting is a more reliable path to long-term value creation for insurers, and Fairfax's underwriting record is relatively poor.