One of the things that many long-term investors like to do is to find companies with strong and lasting economic moats. The term “economic moat” was popularised by Warren Buffett and he uses it to refer to the characteristics a company has that protects its profits from competitors.

I recently published This is Berkshire Hathaway’s Simple But Unreplicable Competitive Advantage In The Insurance Industry. In it, I discussed the unique mindset that Buffett has that gives Berkshire (he’s the leader of the company) an unassailable edge over its insurance industry peers:

“What we’ve had going for us is a managerial mindset that most insurers find impossible to replicate.” This is the simple but unreplicable competitive advantage that Buffett and Berkshire has in the insurance industry. It is simple. You just have to be willing to tolerate a huge decline in business volume – potentially for a long time – if