Insuring Your Portfolio With Insurance Stocks

Our next exciting stock, Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:ENH) offers up the same profitable underwriting policies as the companies mentioned above. While not offering investors the juiciest of current yields coming in at just 1.6% it does sport a very safe dividend with a low payout ratio of just 30.8%.

As with the other stocks mentioned, Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:ENH) offers any dividend growth investor a very safe yield. Long term dividend growth has been decent with a ten year annualized dividend growth rate of 4.3%. Nothing too stellar but it’s still growth nonetheless. ENH has a current PE of 18.9 as its stock rocketed higher several months ago after Japan’s Sompo agreed to buy ENH for $6.3 billion. Dividends are continuing to be paid out regularly by the Endurance Specialty Holdings Ltd. (NYSE:ENH) board as the company just declared a quarterly dividend of $0.38 towards the end of February.

Finally, in this round up we have an insurer that’s very familiar to most, at least here in the U.S., Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR). Founded in 1937, PGR offers both personal and commercial property-casualty insurance across many different areas. Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR) currently offers a 1.7% yield with a 50.5% payout ratio, which seems to be the general theme of insurers offering up safe dividend payouts.

Buy for the modest current yield and the prospect of future raises. Speaking of raises, PGR has a very impressive ten year annualized dividend growth rate of 32.0%. That’s an accelerated dividend growth rate by any measure. With a current PE of 22.4, Progressive Corp (NYSE:PGR) is trading well above its five year average as its stock climbed significantly since late 2016. Perhaps waiting for a pullback in share price might be prudent at this time.

Of course, there are many, many names in the property and casualty insurance space. Perhaps, I’ll highlight another group of stocks in this space in the future. I think there’s good reason this industry has so many players, it’s very profitable. As evidenced by the four stocks profiled above, the P&C insurance space offers up very some safe yield for those looking to add a stable dividend payer to their portfolio.

What do you think about the P&C industry? Do you own any insurance stocks in your own portfolio? Please let me know below.

Disclosure: Long NONE

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