A fun (and deceptively insightful) Rick Reilly column about Warren Buffett’s contest to insure the NCAA college basketball bracket.

Buffett’s skills as an insurance underwriter are underrated, and are an underrated contributor to Berkshire Hathaway’s value. One of these days I’ll try to connect his underwriting skills to his investing skills, and will try to show how in some sense allocating capital and underwriting insurance policies are mirror images of each other, the mirror being the vertical line separating the two sides of the balance sheet. Looked at this way, a given quantity of underwriting skill can be stated in terms of investment skill and vice versa.