Critical Analysis: Exzeo Group (NYSE:XZO) & Fidelis Insurance (NYSE:PLGO)

Exzeo Group (NYSE:XZO) and Fidelis Insurance (NYSE:PLGO) are both financial services companies, but which is the better stock? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, dividends, analyst recommendations, profitability, valuation, risk and earnings.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

82.0% of Fidelis Insurance shares are held by institutional investors. 4.0% of Exzeo Group shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Exzeo Group and Fidelis Insurance”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Exzeo Group	$220.11 million	5.34	$82.75 million	$0.72	17.96
Fidelis Insurance	$2.50 billion	0.79	$225.50 million	$3.74	6.15

Fidelis Insurance has higher revenue and earnings than Exzeo Group. Fidelis Insurance is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Exzeo Group, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Profitability

This table compares Exzeo Group and Fidelis Insurance’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Exzeo Group	N/A	N/A	N/A
Fidelis Insurance	15.33%	14.44%	2.63%

Analyst Ratings

This is a breakdown of current ratings and target prices for Exzeo Group and Fidelis Insurance, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Exzeo Group	1	1	3	0	2.40
Fidelis Insurance	1	1	2	0	2.25

Exzeo Group currently has a consensus target price of $26.00, suggesting a potential upside of 101.05%. Fidelis Insurance has a consensus target price of $25.00, suggesting a potential upside of 8.66%. Given Exzeo Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe Exzeo Group is more favorable than Fidelis Insurance.

Summary

Fidelis Insurance beats Exzeo Group on 7 of the 13 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Exzeo Group

Exzeo provides turnkey insurance technology and operations solutions to insurance carriers and their agents based on a proprietary platform of purpose-built software and data analytics applications that are specifically designed for the property and casualty, or P&C, insurance ecosystem. Exzeo’s Insurance-as-a-Service (IaaS) platform, which we refer to as the “Exzeo Platform,” currently includes nine highly configurable software and data analytics applications that are purpose-built to serve insurance companies and other customers in the insurance value chain. Through the Exzeo Platform, Exzeo provides technology-based solutions and services for all operational and administrative activities and functions needed by P&C insurance carriers and their agents, including quoting and underwriting, policy management, claims processing management, data reporting, and financial reporting. As a result, the Exzeo Platform streamlines and automates the interaction between insurance carriers and their policyholders. Exzeo was established in 2012 as the technology and innovation division of HCI Group, Inc., or HCI, a leading underwriter of homeowners insurance in Florida and 12 other states. Exzeo’s initial customers are insurance carriers or their managing general agent that are owned or managed by HCI and its subsidiaries, and Exzeo has derived substantially all of its revenues to date from such customers. In addition to working with existing customers to expand their business, Exzeo intends to develop new customer partnerships with additional carriers and their agents by introducing them to the advantage of our technology. Exzeo was founded with a clear mission: to develop a platform that enhances underwriting margins, reduces operating expenses, enables rapid expansion across both geographic markets and product lines, and delivers a streamlined, user-friendly experience for both carriers and policyholders. Exzeo’s data-centric technology and mission inspired its name, which is derived from the combination of three words that describe the “Big Data” it collects and utilizes in its products and services: Exabyte (a million trillion – 1018– bytes), Zettabyte (1021 bytes) and Yottabyte (1024 bytes). Exzeo generates revenue from underwriting and management services, claim services, and other technology services that are provided through and powered by the Exzeo Platform. Exzeo provides its solutions and technologies to customers under contracts with a variable fee structure that is typically based on a percentage of premium managed through the Exzeo Platform. Exzeo believes that this fee structure is beneficial to customers because it is designed to allow customers to scale while optimizing for operational efficiencies and without significant up-front technology expenditures. We currently hold insurance agency or managing general agent licenses, as appropriate, in 29 states. Through the Exzeo Platform, we currently provide services in the following 13 states in which our customers have operations: Florida, Connecticut, Georgia, Massachusetts, Montana, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Nevada, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, and Utah. We intend to expand our operations (and obtain additional licenses as needed) in the 21 remaining states based upon growth plans of our existing customers or the existing geographies and growth plans of new customers with which we engage. Exzeo Group, Inc. is the registrant and the issuer of the common stock being sold in this offering. Our corporate headquarters is located in Tampa, FL.

About Fidelis Insurance

Fidelis is a leading global provider of bespoke and specialty insurance and reinsurance products. We believe our differentiated underwriting positions us well to generate strong returns across (re)insurance cycles. Current Fidelis is led by Mr. Daniel Burrows who has more than 35 years of experience in the insurance industry and is supported by a highly experienced management team that manages the operations of Current Fidelis based on our founding principles. Following the Separation Transactions, Current Fidelis is positioned as a global, specialty insurance provider with exclusive right of first access to Fidelis MGU’s underwriting business during the term of the Framework Agreement. Based on Fidelis’ historical experience, we expect this long-term partnership to deliver strong returns to our shareholders, primarily driven by our underwriting results. We aim to be good stewards of capital by effectively balancing capital deployment across market opportunities with capital distributions to our shareholders. We will continue to benefit from decades of thought and process leadership and innovation through our strategic relationship with Fidelis MGU. The management team of Fidelis MGU, led by Mr. Brindle, has a robust track record built across multiple platforms. Mr. Brindle has more than 38 years of underwriting leadership, including founding Lancashire Holdings Limited (“Lancashire”) and holding leading roles at Syndicates 488 and 2488 at Lloyd’s of London (“Lloyd’s”). Teams led by Mr. Brindle oversaw Lancashire stock price appreciation of 412.0% from December 16, 2005 (the date of Lancashire’s initial public offering) to December 31, 2013 (immediately prior to his retirement from Lancashire), significantly exceeding the 71.0% price appreciation from a group of Lancashire’s publicly traded insurance company peers for the period (including Ace, XL, Arch, Everest, PartnerRe, Axis, Allied World, RenaissanceRe, Validus, Montpelier, Greenlight Re, Third Point Re, Hiscox, Amlin, Catlin, Beazley and Novae). Past performance of Lancashire is no guarantee of future results for Fidelis. Mr. Brindle and his team also outperformed at Lloyd’s by delivering a 17.5% return on a straight average for Syndicates 488 and 2488 during his time there from 1986 to 1998, compared to Lloyd’s average return of 0.9% over the same period. Past performance of Syndicates 488 and 2488 is no guarantee of future results for Fidelis. Further, while at Fidelis, between 2017 and 2022 Mr. Brindle and his management team achieved strong, consistent underwriting performance with an average loss ratio of 45.3%, an average combined ratio of 85.8% and an average standard deviation of combined ratio of 6.5% compared with the peer average of 64.3% and 99.5% and 8.1%, respectively. Over this same period, Fidelis’ average loss ratios for each of its Specialty, Bespoke and Reinsurance pillars was 42.8%, 26.7% and 64.9%, respectively, compared to its peers’ average loss ratios of 61.4%, 61.4% and 72.1%, respectively. Fidelis’ combined ratio was 86.0%, 76.3%, 86.6%, 80.6%, 92.9% and 92.1% in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively, compared to a peer average combined ratio of 109.4%, 96.9%, 96.7%, 103.7%, 96.6% and 93.5% in 2017, 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022, respectively. In the three months ended March 31, 2023, our loss ratio was 41.3% and combined ratio was 79.1% compared with a peer average of 59.3% and 90.5%, respectively. Fidelis’ peer group includes Arch, Argo, Aspen, Markel, W. R. Berkley, Hiscox, Beazley, Lancashire, Everest Re, Axis Capital and RenaissanceRe (except for the three months ended March 31, 2023 which excludes Aspen, Hiscox, Beazley and Lancashire as the information is not available for this period). In each case, prior underwriting and combined ratio performance is no guarantee of future performance. Each of the Fidelis and financial peer combined ratios is calculated as the sum of losses and loss adjustment expenses, policy acquisition expenses and general and administrative expenses as a percentage of NPE in all periods except 2018. In 2018, the Fidelis combined ratio included a negative $2.1 million adjustment to NPE as a result of the costs to acquire a derivative instrument to protect against Typhoon Jebi losses and a $10 million positive adjustment to investment returns recognized on the derivative. Financial peer combined ratios were calculated as the average of the reported combined ratios of each company. We will continue to focus on nimble underwriting designed to capitalize on current market trends and dislocations as well as emerging risk solutions. We expect to maintain at a minimum the existing underwriting standards and where appropriate will look for enhancements. The team of underwriters at Fidelis MGU continues to maintain the robust processes and use of technology that have been key to Fidelis’ historical success at ensuring its underwriting efforts capture recent market developments. We believe this close coordination reduces the likelihood of siloed underwriting and gives us a competitive advantage in our underwriting, risk assessment and ability to offer as many products as possible to clients. A crucial and distinguishing part of those robust processes is daily Underwriting and Marketing Conference Calls (the “UMCC”) with practice leads and key members of senior management (including risk modeling, actuarial, legal, compliance, contract wordings and claims epresentatives) to provide live market insights and multiple perspectives to allow underwriters to quickly assess emerging opportunities, achieve strong underwriting and cross-sell across our product range. Since we began underwriting business in 2015, Fidelis has reached an attractive scale in bespoke and specialty insurance and property reinsurance markets while delivering robust results. Our GPW grew from $0.5 billion for the year ended December 31, 2017 to $3.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2022, a compound annual growth rate of 40.6%, while delivering an average loss ratio of 45.3% and an average combined ratio of 85.8%. Over the same period, our NPE grew from $0.2 billion for the year ended December 31, 2017 to $1.5 billion for the year ended December 31, 2022, a compound annual growth rate of 47.0%. Our GPW continued to grow to $1.2 billion for the three months ended March 31, 2023 compared to $1.0 billion for the three months ended March 31, 2022. Our loss ratio and combined ratio for the three months ended March 31, 2023 were 41.3% and 79.1%, respectively. In addition to earnings growth from the origination of new business, we believe that there is significant embedded earnings potential in previously written business due to the requirements of applicable accounting rules that revenue from written premiums must be recognized when earned over the life of a policy. This is reflected in our gross UPR balance of $3.3 billion at March 31, 2023. Our scale and access to the highly selective underwriting capabilities of Fidelis MGU via our strategic relationship will allow us to capitalize on current insurance market trends and continue focusing on delivering growth coupled with strong underwriting results. Fidelis is subject to varying degrees of regulation and supervision in the jurisdictions in which it operates. In particular, the businesses of our three insurance operating subsidiaries, FIBL, FUL and FIID, are authorized by, and subject to insurance laws and regulations that are administered and enforced by, a number of different governmental and non-governmental self-regulatory authorities and associations in each of their respective jurisdictions and internationally. Our registered office is at Waterloo House, 100 Pitts Bay Road, Pembroke, Bermuda.