It's been mooted often enough. The business would be a decent fit (probably better than Allegheny, though I'm sure the relationship with Joe Brandon was a big part of making that deal happen). But a Berkshire acquisition of Markel would invite a lot of regulatory scrutiny and the takeout premium would have to be ridiculous: Gaynor enjoys running his own portfolio, which might or might not be a factor in his professed belief that a (smaller, worser) Berkshire knockoff is worth something like 2.5x book value (I pulled that number out of a hat, but I'm almost positive Gaynor threw out something like that multiple in the past).

Markel isn't a bad business, it just persistently suffers from the comparison with Berkshire, in everyone's minds but their own. They've doubled down on the folksy aphorisms without the remarkable intelligence and good judgment exhibited by Messrs. Buffett, Munger, Simpson, Jain, et al. The 2025 Markel shareholder letter opened by asking shareholders to define 'home,' and it got worse from there. Every time they do put up decent results, they do an end-zone victory dance in the course of which they find a new rake to step on. It's like watching Chris Farley do insurance.

And yet, after all that, I own Markel. It's not bad, and now it's cheap.