Three insurance stocks at 52-week highs — MetLife (NYSE: MET), Globe Life (NYSE: GL), and Unum Group (NYSE: UNM) — are trading at single-digit to mid-teen forward earnings multiples even after double-digit gains, a setup that rarely survives long once value buyers take notice.
| Ticker | Fwd P/E | YTD / 3-Mo Gain | Consensus | Price Target |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| MET | 16x | +17% (3-mo) | Moderate Buy | $95.31 |
| GL | 10x | New 52-wk high | Moderate Buy | $174.11 |
| UNM | 9x | +16% (3-mo) | Moderate Buy | $93.83 |
Why Insurance Stocks at 52-Week Highs Are Avoiding the P&C Wreckage
The bifurcation in insurance is not subtle. The iShares U.S. Insurance ETF (NYSE: IAK) is down roughly 2% year-to-date. The Invesco KBW Property & Casualty ETF (Nasdaq: KBWP) is off more than 5%. The driver: commercial P&C pricing has cracked.
The Council of Insurance Agents and Brokers reported average commercial P&C premiums fell 1.2% in Q1 2026, ending a streak of 33 consecutive quarters of increases. The prior quarter had posted a modest 0.2% gain. That kind of reversal moves index weights fast.
On the property side, commercial property premiums fell 5.5% in Q1, the steepest decline of any P&C line. Commercial auto, by contrast, rose 5.8% — its 59th consecutive quarter of increases — but auto is a smaller slice of the index heavyweights.
That leaves Progressive (NYSE: PGR), Chubb (NYSE: CB), and Travelers (NYSE: TRV) — the large-cap P&C names that dominate insurance benchmarks — sitting in the middle of the softening cycle. MET, GL, and UNM have minimal P&C exposure and limited index weight. That combination is the entire trade.
Unum Group: 9x Earnings, 17th Consecutive Dividend Raise
Unum is the cheapest name in the group on a forward earnings basis. The stock trades at 9x forward earnings despite a 16% gain over three months and new all-time highs.
Q1 results, released April 28, showed EPS of $2.14, beating the analyst consensus of $2.07 by $0.07. Revenue grew 8% year-over-year, with long-term care risk continuing to fade. Management followed the beat with a roughly 10% increase in the quarterly dividend, the 17th consecutive annual raise.
A Golden Cross is forming on the daily chart at the 50-day and 200-day moving averages. The RSI is in bullish territory without crossing overbought. Low beta, rising dividend, derisking story. Consensus price target sits at $93.83 against a recent price near $86.70, implying about 8% upside before the Street would need to revise higher.
Globe Life: $3.39 EPS but Revenue Missed
Globe Life focuses on life and supplemental health for lower- and middle-income households. Not a growth story. A cash flow story.
Q1 2026 net income came in at $3.39 per diluted share, up from $3.01 in Q1 2025. Net operating income was $3.43 per diluted share versus $3.07 a year earlier. Management raised full-year operating EPS guidance to $15.40–$15.90. Those are clean numbers.
The one blemish: Q1 revenue of $1.56 billion missed analyst forecasts, even as EPS topped estimates. At 10x forward earnings, the stock trades at a steep discount to both the insurance sector average (12x) and the S&P 500 (22x). The guidance raise absorbed the revenue shortfall well enough to push GL to a new 52-week high regardless.
The 50-day moving average held as support during the recent breakout. Former resistance flipping to support is a pattern that tends to attract technical buyers on any near-term pullback.
MetLife: The Dividend Compounder With Momentum
MetLife carries more index weight than the other two — roughly 5% of IAK’s holdings — but that hasn’t slowed it down. MET is up more than 17% over three months, driven by Q1 adjusted EPS of $2.42 (up 23% year-over-year) on adjusted earnings of $1.6 billion. The company returned more than $1 billion to shareholders through buybacks and dividends in the quarter, its 12th consecutive year of dividend increases.
The stock broke through multi-year resistance near $83. At a forward P/E of 16x, it is not as cheap as GL or UNM. But the consensus target of $95.31 against a current price near $84.61 still offers double-digit implied upside before the Street’s models need updating.
All three names carry Moderate Buy ratings. The next test for insurance stocks at 52-week highs is whether Q2 earnings — expected across July and August — can show the same P&C insulation held through the quarter.
