Warren Buffett has never been one to mince his words. And perhaps that’s why folks from Wall Street and Main Street have followed the “Oracle of Omaha” and his business decisions for decades. When Buffett’s holding company makes an equity investment, people pay close attention, and many retail investors choose to make those same buys.
Buffett’s purchase of UnitedHealth Group (UNH) in the second quarter of 2025, when his Berkshire Hathaway (BRK.B) purchased 5,039,564 shares of UNH stock, was particularly noteworthy. The health insurer has been struggling since the assassination of UnitedHealth CEO Brian Thompson, and has now run into trouble with regulators. UNH is one of the worst-performing stocks in the S&P 500 Index ($SPX) this year, down 32.45% in 2025.
The Oracle is no stranger to the insurance business, with companies like GEICO and National Indemnity under the Berkshire umbrella. However, Buffett doesn’t always sound sweet on insurance. In fact, in 1977, he wrote, “Insurance companies offer standardized policies which can be copied by anyone. Their only products are promises. It is not difficult to be licensed, and rates are an open book. There are no important advantages from trademarks, patents, location, corporate longevity, raw material sources, etc., and very little consumer differentiation to produce insulation from competition.”
Buffett used this lead-in to ultimately say that Berkshire was “very fortunate” to have the managers it did running its businesses back in 1977. But along the way, he was also quick to point out that “the nature of the insurance business magnifies the effect which individual managers have on company performance.”
So how should investors reconcile Buffett’s big Q2 buy with his decades-old comments on the insurance biz? There are several reasons Buffett could still see UnitedHealth as a smart bet, especially at today’s depressed prices.
First, the market may be punishing UNH more harshly than the fundamentals warrant. The company still boasts one of the largest health‐insurance membership bases in the U.S., deep relationships with employers and hospitals, and a sprawling, profitable services arm in Optum. Those structural advantages aren’t easy to replicate, even in an industry Buffett once described as “commoditized.”