Head to Head Contrast: Palomar (NASDAQ:PLMR) vs. Corebridge Financial (NYSE:CRBG)

Corebridge Financial (NYSE:CRBG) and Palomar (NASDAQ:PLMR) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, valuation, profitability, institutional ownership, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Corebridge Financial and Palomar, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Corebridge Financial	0	4	10	0	2.71
Palomar	0	0	5	1	3.17

Corebridge Financial currently has a consensus target price of $39.00, indicating a potential upside of 12.40%. Palomar has a consensus target price of $160.00, indicating a potential upside of 14.81%. Given Palomar’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Palomar is more favorable than Corebridge Financial.

Profitability

This table compares Corebridge Financial and Palomar’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Corebridge Financial	4.37%	17.37%	0.52%
Palomar	18.61%	23.28%	6.45%

Dividends

Corebridge Financial pays an annual dividend of $1.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.9%. Palomar pays an annual dividend of $1.80 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.3%. Corebridge Financial pays out 58.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Palomar pays out 24.2% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. Corebridge Financial has increased its dividend for 1 consecutive years. Corebridge Financial is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and longer track record of dividend growth.

Risk & Volatility

Corebridge Financial has a beta of 1.07, indicating that its share price is 7% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Palomar has a beta of 0.35, indicating that its share price is 65% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional & Insider Ownership

98.3% of Corebridge Financial shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 90.2% of Palomar shares are owned by institutional investors. 0.3% of Corebridge Financial shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 3.7% of Palomar shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Corebridge Financial and Palomar”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Corebridge Financial	$20.46 billion	0.76	-$366.00 million	$1.71	20.29
Palomar	$875.97 million	4.19	$197.07 million	$7.44	18.73

Palomar has lower revenue, but higher earnings than Corebridge Financial. Palomar is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Corebridge Financial, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

Palomar beats Corebridge Financial on 11 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Corebridge Financial

Corebridge Financial, Inc. provides retirement solutions and insurance products in the United States. The company operates through Individual Retirement, Group Retirement, Life Insurance, and Institutional Markets segments. The Individual Retirement segment provides fixed annuities, fixed index annuities, variable annuities, and retail mutual funds. The Group Retirement segment offers record-keeping services, plan administration and compliance services, and financial planning and advisory solutions to employer-defined contribution plans and their participants, as well as proprietary and non-proprietary annuities, advisory services, and brokerage products. The Life Insurance segment offers term life and universal life insurance in the United States, as well as issues individual life, whole life, and group life insurance in the United Kingdom; and distributes medical insurance in Ireland. The Institutional Markets segment provides stable value wraps, structured settlement and pension risk transfer annuities, corporate and bank owned life insurance, private placement variable universal life and annuities products, and guaranteed investment contracts. The company was formerly known as SAFG Retirement Services, Inc. Corebridge Financial, Inc. was incorporated in 1998 and is headquartered in Houston, Texas. The company operates as a subsidiary of American International Group, Inc.

About Palomar

Palomar Holdings, Inc., a specialty insurance company, provides property and casualty insurance to residential and businesses in the United States. The company offers personal and commercial specialty property insurance products, including residential and commercial earthquake, fronting, commercial all risk, specialty homeowners, inland marine, Hawaii hurricane, and residential flood, as well as other products, such as assumed reinsurance. It markets and distributes its products through retail agents, wholesale brokers, program administrators, and carrier partnerships. The company was formerly known as GC Palomar Holdings and changed its name to Palomar Holdings, Inc. The company was incorporated in 2013 and is headquartered in La Jolla, California.