HCC Insurance Holdings Earnings Preview

Motley Fool Staff
Updated

Investors are on the edge of their collective seats, hoping that HCC Insurance Holdings (NYS: HCC) will top analyst expectations for the fourth consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings Tuesday. HCC Insurance Holdings provides property and casualty, surety, and group life, accident, and health insurance coverage, as well as related agency and reinsurance brokerage services to commercial customers and individuals.

What analysts say:

  • Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts are bullish on this stock with six analysts rating it as a buy and only one rating it as a sell. Analysts don't like HCC Insurance Holdings as much as competitor American Financial Group overall.

  • Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $513.8 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 1.5% from the year-ago quarter.

  • Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.72 per share. Estimates range from $0.67 to $0.77.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 97.2% assigning it an "outperform" rating. The community at large concurs with the All-Stars with 92% awarding it a rating of "outperform." Fools have embraced HCC Insurance Holdings, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 63 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, HCC Insurance Holdings' CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
HCC Insurance Holdings' income has fallen year over year by an average of 7.4%. Revenue has fallen for the past three quarters.

Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows net margins over the past four quarters.

Quarter

Q1

Q4

Q3

Q2

Net Margin

8.3%

16.9%

16.2%

14.4%

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At the time thisarticle was published

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