Safety Insurance Group (NASDAQ:SAFT) and Allstate (NYSE:ALL) Head-To-Head Contrast

Allstate (NYSE:ALL) and Safety Insurance Group (NASDAQ:SAFT) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, institutional ownership, risk, valuation and dividends.

Risk and Volatility

Allstate has a beta of 0.32, indicating that its stock price is 68% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Safety Insurance Group has a beta of 0.22, indicating that its stock price is 78% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

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

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Allstate	7.28%	28.20%	4.58%
Safety Insurance Group	6.86%	6.35%	2.41%

Insider and Institutional Ownership

76.5% of Allstate shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 81.0% of Safety Insurance Group shares are held by institutional investors. 1.8% of Allstate shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.0% of Safety Insurance Group shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Valuation and Earnings

This table compares Allstate and Safety Insurance Group”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Allstate	$65.32 billion	0.83	$4.67 billion	$14.64	14.01
Safety Insurance Group	$1.14 billion	1.08	$18.88 million	$4.89	16.90

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

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current recommendations and price targets for Allstate and Safety Insurance Group, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Allstate	1	1	13	1	2.88
Safety Insurance Group	0	0	0	0	0.00

Allstate presently has a consensus price target of $225.20, indicating a potential upside of 9.80%. Given Allstate’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Allstate is more favorable than Safety Insurance Group.

Dividends

Allstate pays an annual dividend of $4.00 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.0%. Safety Insurance Group pays an annual dividend of $3.60 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.4%. Allstate pays out 27.3% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Safety Insurance Group pays out 73.6% 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. Allstate has raised its dividend for 15 consecutive years.

Summary

Allstate beats Safety Insurance Group on 13 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Allstate

The Allstate Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, provides property and casualty, and other insurance products in the United States and Canada. It operates in five segments: Allstate Protection; Protection Services; Allstate Health and Benefits; Run-off Property-Liability; and Corporate and Other segments. The Allstate Protection segment offers private passenger auto and homeowners insurance; other personal lines products; and commercial lines products through agents, contact centers, and online. The Protection Services segment provides consumer product protection; protection and insurance products, including vehicle service contracts, guaranteed asset protection, road hazard tire and wheel, and paintless dent repair protection; and roadside assistance, device and mobile data collection services, and analytic solutions using automotive telematics information, as well as identity theft protection and remediation services. This segment also offers its products under various brands, including Allstate Protection Plans, Allstate Dealer Services, Allstate Roadside, Arity, Avail, and Allstate Identity Protection. The Allstate Health and Benefits segment provides life, accident, critical illness, short-term disability, and other health insurance products; stop-loss and fully insured group health products to employers; and short-term medical and medicare supplement insurance to individuals. The Run-off Property-Liability segment offers property and casualty insurance coverage that primarily relates to policies written during the 1960s through the mid-1980s. The Corporate and Other segment provides debt services, as well as non-insurance operations. It sells its products through agents, independent agents, call and contact centers, retailers, direct to consumer, wholesale partners, and affinity groups, as well as through online and mobile applications. The Allstate Corporation was founded in 1931 and is headquartered in Northbrook, Illinois.

About Safety Insurance Group

Safety Insurance Group, Inc. provides private passenger and commercial automobile, and homeowner insurance in the United States. The company’s private passenger automobile policies offer coverage for bodily injury and property damage to others, no-fault personal injury coverage for the insured/insured’s car occupants, and physical damage coverage for an insured’s own vehicle for collision or other perils. It also provides commercial automobile policies that offer insurance for commercial vehicles used for business purposes, including private passenger-type vehicles, trucks, tractors and trailers, insure individual vehicles, and commercial fleets; and homeowners policies, which provide coverage for homes, condominiums, and apartments for losses to a dwelling and its contents from various perils, and coverage for liability to others arising from ownership or occupancy. In addition, the company offers business owners policies that cover apartments and residential condominiums, restaurants, office condominiums, processing and services businesses, special trade contractors, and wholesalers. Further, it provides personal umbrella policies, which provide personal excess liability coverage over and above the limits of individual automobile, watercraft, and homeowner’s insurance policies; and commercial umbrella, which offers an excess liability product to clients, as well as underwrites dwelling fire insurance for non-owner-occupied residences. Additionally, the company offers inland marine coverage for homeowners and business owner policies, and watercraft coverage for small and medium sized pleasure crafts. It distributes its products through independent agents. The company was formerly known as Safety Holdings Inc and changed its name to Safety Insurance Group, Inc. in April 2002. Safety Insurance Group, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Boston, Massachusetts.