Strength Seen in Heritage Insurance (HRTG): Can Its 17.9% Jump Turn into More Strength?

Heritage Insurance (HRTG) shares soared 17.9% in the last trading session to close at $27.66. The move was backed by solid volume with far more shares changing hands than in a normal session. This compares to the stock's 9.4% loss over the past four weeks.

The surge likely has been driven by HRTG’s preliminary fourth quarter 2025 financial results where the insurer expects to deliver fourth quarter 2025 after-tax net income in excess of $60 million, or more than $2.00 per share. Return on equity for 2025 in expected to be more than 45%. The solid results came on the back of higher revenues and lower losses and expenses.  

This super-regional U.S. property and casualty insurance holding company is well-positioned to benefit from prudent underwriting execution and rate adequacy initiatives implemented over the past three years.

Heritage Insurance is intensifying its focus on profitability by prioritizing rate adequacy, disciplined underwriting and cautious expansion in markets that are either saturated or generating weak returns.  It is re-entering profitable markets in a measured way while allocating capital with strict discipline to preserve margins.

To prudently manage its overall risk profile, Heritage has broadened its geographic footprint, improved risk diversification, moderated claims
volatility and reduced reinsurance expenses. 

A strengthening commercial residential segment, expanded personal lines capacity, improved E&S performance, better pricing, rising revenues, margin expansion and solid earnings support HRTG’s long term growth.

This property and casualty insurance holding company is expected to post quarterly earnings of $1.05 per share in its upcoming report, which represents a year-over-year change of +59.1%. Revenues are expected to be $212.61 million, up 1.1% from the year-ago quarter.

Earnings and revenue growth expectations certainly give a good sense of the potential strength in a stock, but empirical research shows that trends in earnings estimate revisions are strongly correlated with near-term stock price movements.

For Heritage Insurance, the consensus EPS estimate for the quarter has remained unchanged over the last 30 days. And a stock's price usually doesn't keep moving higher in the absence of any trend in earnings estimate revisions. So, make sure to keep an eye on HRTG going forward to see if this recent jump can turn into more strength down the road.

The stock currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold). You can see the complete list of today's Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy) stocks here >>>>

Heritage Insurance belongs to the Zacks Insurance - Property and Casualty industry. Another stock from the same industry, Progressive (PGR), closed the last trading session 1.2% higher at $206.08. Over the past month, PGR has returned -2.1%.

Progressive's consensus EPS estimate for the upcoming report has changed +5% over the past month to $4.6. Compared to the company's year-ago EPS, this represents a change of -1.1%. Progressive currently boasts a Zacks Rank of #3 (Hold).

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This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).

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