Here's Why You Should Hold On To Everest Re (RE) Stock Now

Everest Re Group Ltd (NYSE:RE) remains well-poised for growth, banking on traditional risk management capabilities, capital adequacy and financial flexibility. The Zacks Rank #3 (Hold) property and casualty insurer bears immense potential owing to a few good growth drivers.

Growth Projections: The Zacks Consensus Estimate for earnings per share is pegged at $1.71 for 2017 and at $19.80 for 2018. Though the consensus mark for 2017 reflects a year-over-year decrease of 93%, the same for 2018 improved a massive 1056%.

The top line marks a 9.4% and 8% year-over-year increase for 2017 and 2018, respectively.

The expected long-term earnings growth rate is pegged at 10%.

Northbound Estimates: Recent positive revisions have raised the 2017 Zacks Consensus Estimate for Everest Re to earnings per share of $1.71 from a loss of 1.66 over the last 60 days. The consensus mark for 2018 earnings moved north 0.5% over the same time frame.

Positive Earnings Surprise History: Everest Re has surpassed the Zacks Consensus Estimate in three of the last four quarters with an average beat of 34.90%.

Price Performance: Shares of Everest Re have gained 0.5% year to date, underperforming the industry’s 17.3% rally.

Growth Drivers in Place

Strategic initiatives namely product diversification, growth of the existing Canadian platform, opening a European operating platform to expand global underwriting operation and Lloyds (LON:LLOY) platform gaining pace, have been helping the company improve gross written premiums at its Insurance segment.

The Reinsurance segment has managed to outperform the broader market despite a decline in premiums. Mt. Logan Re and Kilimanjaro Re Ltd. are key growth drivers for the company and remain the fastest growing capital market vehicles.

Improvements in limited partnership investments and a well-balanced portfolio have helped the company witness an increasing net investment income over the last few years. Given the gradually improving interest rate environment, we expect the momentum to continue.

A strong capital position aids the company to return value to shareholders through dividend hikes and buybacks. With a 4% dividend raise in November, the company doubled its payout since the third quarter of 2013. Everest Re also has 2 million shares left under its repurchase authorization.

Stocks to Consider

Some better-ranked stocks from the insurance industry are Infinity Property and Casualty Corporation (NASDAQ:IPCC) , CNA Financial Corporation (NYSE:CNA) and NMI Holdings Inc. (NASDAQ:NMIH) .

Infinity Property and Casualty provides personal automobile insurance products in the United States. The company pulled off a four-quarter average positive surprise of 300.65%. Shares of the company have rallied 20.9% year to date. The stock sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

CNA Financial provides commercial property and casualty insurance products primarily in the United States. The company delivered a four-quarter average positive surprise of 39.78%. Shares of the company have gained 28.4% year to date. The stock sports a Zacks Rank of 1.

NMI Holdings provides private mortgage guaranty insurance services in the United States. The company came up with a four-quarter average positive surprise of 11.75%. Shares of the company have surged 65.3% year to date. The stock carries a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy).

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