Head to Head Review: Allstate (NYSE:ALL) and Bowhead Specialty (NYSE:BOW)

Allstate (NYSE:ALL) and Bowhead Specialty (NYSE:BOW) are both finance companies, but which is the better stock? We will compare the two companies based on the strength of their institutional ownership, earnings, analyst recommendations, valuation, profitability, dividends and risk.

Profitability

This table compares Allstate and Bowhead Specialty’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Allstate	17.81%	42.66%	9.39%
Bowhead Specialty	9.99%	13.80%	2.71%

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of current ratings for Allstate and Bowhead Specialty, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Allstate	1	9	8	3	2.62
Bowhead Specialty	0	4	5	0	2.56

Allstate currently has a consensus price target of $241.67, suggesting a potential upside of 9.36%. Bowhead Specialty has a consensus price target of $31.43, suggesting a potential upside of 21.86%. Given Bowhead Specialty’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Bowhead Specialty is more favorable than Allstate.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

76.5% of Allstate shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.6% of Allstate shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 4.2% of Bowhead Specialty shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares Allstate and Bowhead Specialty”s gross revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Allstate	$67.69 billion	0.84	$10.28 billion	$45.33	4.87
Bowhead Specialty	$551.59 million	1.54	$53.79 million	$1.73	14.91

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

Summary

Allstate beats Bowhead Specialty on 10 of the 14 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 Bowhead Specialty

Bowhead Specialty Holdings Inc. provides specialty property and casualty insurance products in the United States. It underwrites casualty insurance solutions for risks in the construction, distribution, heavy manufacturing, real estate, and hospitality segments; professional liability insurance solutions for financial institutions, private and public directors and officers liability insurance, errors and omissions liability insurance, and cyber segments; and healthcare solutions for hospitals, senior care providers, managed care organizations, miscellaneous medical facilities, and healthcare management liability segments. The company distributes its products through distribution partners in wholesale and retail markets. Bowhead Specialty Holdings Inc. was formerly known as Bowhead Holdings Inc. and changed its name to Bowhead Specialty Holdings Inc. in March 2024. The company was founded in 2020 and is based in New York, New York. Bowhead Specialty Holdings Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Bowhead Insurance Holdings LP.