American Coastal Insurance (NASDAQ:ACIC – Get Free Report) and MetLife (NYSE:MET – Get Free Report) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, risk, earnings, profitability, dividends, valuation and analyst recommendations.
Dividends
American Coastal Insurance pays an annual dividend of $0.50 per share and has a dividend yield of 5.4%. MetLife pays an annual dividend of $2.37 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.5%. American Coastal Insurance pays out 24.9% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. MetLife pays out 45.4% 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. MetLife has increased its dividend for 12 consecutive years. American Coastal Insurance is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.
Analyst Ratings
This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for American Coastal Insurance and MetLife, as provided by MarketBeat.
| Sell Ratings | Hold Ratings | Buy Ratings | Strong Buy Ratings | Rating Score | |
| American Coastal Insurance | 0 | 3 | 1 | 0 | 2.25 |
| MetLife | 0 | 1 | 11 | 1 | 3.00 |
Risk and Volatility
American Coastal Insurance has a beta of -0.46, indicating that its share price is 146% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, MetLife has a beta of 0.77, indicating that its share price is 23% less volatile than the S&P 500.
Insider and Institutional Ownership
22.1% of American Coastal Insurance shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 95.0% of MetLife shares are held by institutional investors. 49.2% of American Coastal Insurance shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 0.4% of MetLife shares are held by 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.
Profitability
This table compares American Coastal Insurance and MetLife’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.
| Net Margins | Return on Equity | Return on Assets | |
| American Coastal Insurance | 30.31% | 27.95% | 8.20% |
| MetLife | 4.57% | 23.39% | 0.89% |
Earnings and Valuation
This table compares American Coastal Insurance and MetLife”s top-line revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.
| Gross Revenue | Price/Sales Ratio | Net Income | Earnings Per Share | Price/Earnings Ratio | |
| American Coastal Insurance | $330.16 million | 1.33 | $106.84 million | $2.01 | 4.63 |
| MetLife | $77.08 billion | 0.80 | $3.38 billion | $5.22 | 18.28 |
MetLife has higher revenue and earnings than American Coastal Insurance. American Coastal Insurance is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than MetLife, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
Summary
MetLife beats American Coastal Insurance on 10 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.
About American Coastal Insurance
American Coastal Insurance Corporation operates as a property and casualty insurance holding company that sources, writes, and services residential personal and commercial property, and casualty insurance policies in the United States. The company offers structure, content, and liability coverage for standard single-family homeowners, renters, and condominium unit owners. It also provides commercial multi-peril property insurance for residential condominium associations and apartments, as well as loss or damage to buildings, inventory, and equipment caused by fire, wind, hail, water, theft, and vandalism. In addition, the company offers equipment breakdown, identity theft, cyber security, and flood policies. The company markets and distributes its products through a network of independent agencies. The company was formerly known as United Insurance Holdings Corp. and changed its name to American Coastal Insurance Corporation in August 2023. American Coastal Insurance Corporation was founded in 1999 and is headquartered in Saint Petersburg, Florida.
About MetLife
MetLife, Inc., a financial services company, provides insurance, annuities, employee benefits, and asset management services worldwide. It operates through six segments: Retirement and Income Solutions; Group Benefits; Asia; Latin America; Europe, the Middle East and Africa; and MetLife Holdings. The company offers life, dental, group short-and long-term disability, individual disability, pet insurance, accidental death and dismemberment, vision, and accident and health coverages, as well as prepaid legal plans; administrative services-only arrangements to employers; and general and separate account, and synthetic guaranteed interest contracts, as well as private floating rate funding agreements. It also provides pension risk transfers, institutional income annuities, structured settlements, and capital markets investment products; and other products and services, such as life insurance products and funding agreements for funding postretirement benefits, as well as company, bank, or trust-owned life insurance used to finance nonqualified benefit programs for executives. In addition, it provides fixed, indexed-linked, and variable annuities; pension products; regular savings products; whole and term life, endowments, universal and variable life, and group life products; longevity reinsurance solutions; credit insurance products; and protection against long-term health care services. MetLife, Inc. was incorporated in 1999 and is based in New York, New York.
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