The insurance industry has performed well this reporting cycle with robust earnings from key players. Even damages from successive hurricanes Harvey and Irma have not taken the sheen away from the industry as predicted earlier.
Prominent players such as MetLife (MET – Free Report) , Prudential Financial (PRU – Free Report) , Chubb Corp (CB – Free Report) , Allstate (ALL – Free Report) and Travelers (TRV – Free Report) surpassed both our earnings and revenue estimates. While American International (AIG – Free Report) missed the earnings estimate, Aflac Inc. (AFL – Free Report) lagged revenue estimates.
Insurance Earnings in Focus
MetLife, the U.S. life insurer behemoth, reported robust earnings of $1.09 per share, which beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 19 cents but declined 11% from the year-ago quarter. Revenues increased 5% year over year to $16.8 billion and were well ahead of the estimate of $15 billion. PRU, the second-largest U.S. life insurer, also beat the earnings estimate by 30 cents. Earnings improved 13.2% year over year. Revenues increased 10.2% year over year to $13.4 billion edging past the $12.24 billion estimate.
One of the leading property and casualty insurers, Chubb, reported loss of 13 cents per share, narrower than the Zacks Consensus Estimate of a loss of 26 cents and deteriorated from earnings of $2.88 in the year-ago quarter. Revenues of $8.74 billion edged past the estimated $8.1 billion. Another property and casualty insurer, Allstate, also topped the Zacks Consensus Estimate on earnings and revenues by 81.8% and 13.1%, respectively. On a year-over-year basis, earnings and revenues grew 27% and 4.8%, respectively.
AIG, one of the largest commercial insurers in the United States and Canada, came up with a huge earnings miss of 47%. Earnings per share of $1.70 reported by Aflac, the seller of supplement health insurance, trumped the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 4.9% but decreased 2.3% from the year-ago quarter. Revenues also fell 3.5% year over year to $5.51 billion and fell short of the $5.55 billion estimate.
