Share count
58Mpeak FY2018
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BHFAM, Brighthouse Financial Inc.
Insurance — Life & Health financial
Financial markets up to a stated level, while offering protection from a portion of declines.
We deliver our products through multiple independent distribution channels and marketing arrangements with a diverse network of distribution partners.
Substantially all of our premiums, universal life and investment-type product policy fees and other revenues originated in the U.S.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$6.8B
+12.9% YoY · −4% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $1.5B −36.1% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income ($764M) yr-ago ($266M)
Net margin −50.0% yr-ago −11.1%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- The spread on the float and the growth in book value. What decides it: the gap between what the invested reserves earn and what is credited to policyholders, the mortality and fee margins on top, and the scale of the float against equity. Benefits exceed premiums by design, so a P&C combined ratio is the wrong lens; the risks are interest rates and reserve adequacy. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
- Is it a good business?
- A life insurer is read on the spread it earns on a large float and the growth in book value, not a combined ratio: benefits exceed premiums by design, since claims fall due decades after the premium and are funded by the investment income on accumulated reserves. Book value per share has slipped about 1% a year across the record, though much of that swing is rising rates marking the bond portfolio down through other comprehensive income rather than economic loss. The float runs about 5.7× equity, the leverage that magnifies the spread. Whether the spread holds as rates move, and whether the reserves prove adequate, are what the 10-K decides, not an earnings multiple.
Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $4.4B | $6.8B | $9.0B | $6.6B | $8.5B | $5.6B | $6.9B | $5.5B | $6.0B | $6.8B | $5.9B | RevenueRevenue |
| $1.2B | $863M | $900M | $882M | $766M | $707M | $662M | $828M | $770M | $695M | $677M | Premiums earnedPremiums |
| $3.2B | $3.1B | $3.3B | $3.6B | $3.6B | $4.9B | $4.1B | $4.7B | $5.2B | $5.2B | $5.2B | Investment incomeInv. inc. |
| ($2.9B) | ($378M) | $865M | ($740M) | ($1.1B) | $1.6B | $3.9B | ($1.1B) | $388M | $433M | ($65M) | Net incomeNet inc. |
| — | — | 12% | — | — | 18% | 18% | — | 7% | 8% | — | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $3.7B | $3.4B | $3.1B | $1.8B | $888M | $641M | ($1.2B) | ($137M) | ($290M) | $259M | ($108M) | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| -20% | -3% | 6% | -5% | -6% | 10% | 70% | -22% | 8% | 6% | -1% | Return on equityROE |
| −24% | −3% | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | −1% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $33.4B | $36.6B | $36.2B | — | — | — | $31.5B | $32.6B | $31.5B | $32.0B | $31.8B | Float (reserves)Float |
| $221.9B | $224.2B | $206.3B | $227.3B | $247.9B | $262.3B | $224.8B | $236.3B | $238.5B | $241.8B | $236.8B | Total assetsAssets |
| $6.5B | $2.2B | $4.1B | $4.8B | $7.3B | $6.3B | $5.2B | $5.0B | $6.9B | $6.6B | $6.1B | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $14.9B | $14.5B | $14.4B | $16.2B | $18.0B | $16.1B | $5.5B | $4.9B | $5.0B | $6.8B | $5.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 120M | 120M | 120M | 113M | 95.4M | 84.5M | 73.6M | 66.0M | 61.6M | 57.9M | 57.3M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $-24.54 | $-3.16 | $7.22 | $-6.58 | $-11.13 | $19.45 | $52.72 | $-16.85 | $6.30 | $7.47 | $-1.13 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $4.64 | $0.00 | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | — | $0.00 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $124.08 | $121.19 | $120.32 | $143.74 | $189.02 | $191.11 | $75.20 | $74.88 | $80.50 | $116.81 | $97.03 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +13.6%/yr | +5.5%/yr |
| Book value / share | −0.7%/yr | −9.2%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$6.8Blow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Below the cost of equityNet income $433M ÷ equity $6.8BIndustry peers: median 11%
What this means
What it earns on shareholders' capital, the underwriting result plus what the float earns invested. Durably above the ~10% cost of equity is what compounds book value.
- Investment income $5.2Bearned on investmentsNet investment income $5.2B
What this means
What the float and capital earned this year. This is the second engine: an insurer that breaks even on underwriting still wins if the float is large and invested well.
The float and book value
- Float (reserves) $32.0B4.7× equityLoss and claim reserves $32.0B, 4.7× equity
What this means
Money held against future claims and invested in the meantime. Buffett's insight was that good underwriting makes this float cost less than nothing, a pool of other people's money the owners earn on. Measured here from loss and claim reserves only; it excludes unearned premiums and funds held, so the true float is somewhat larger than shown. The larger it is against equity, the more that leverage works, for better or worse.
- Book value per share $117the compounding scoreboardEquity $6.8B ÷ 58M shares
What this means
A life insurer is judged the way Berkshire is, by the growth in book value per share over the years as the spread on the float and the mortality and fee margins compound into equity. This is the level today; the record below shows whether it has grown. Note that reported book value swings with interest rates, which mark the bond portfolio up and down through other comprehensive income.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Raised, but not as a competitor
The filing raises AI among its risks, but in other terms (security, regulation, energy or the like), not as a competitor to its product; it frames AI mainly as a capability.
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Chief executive | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Net income |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Steigerwalt | $7.9M | $12.6M | $1.6B |
| 2022 | Steigerwalt | $9.8M | $6.7M | $3.9B |
| 2023 | Steigerwalt | $10.0M | $11.4M | ($1.1B) |
| 2024 | Steigerwalt | $10.1M | $8.0M | $388M |
| 2025 | Steigerwalt | $10.5M | $13.5M | $433M |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Net income is the whole business's, as filed, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership1.6%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio69:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Pension & retirement, Insurance reserves as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Insurance — Life & Health
The same industry, side by side on the spread-and-book-value lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | ROE | Return on assets |
|---|---|---|---|
| LNCLincoln National | $18.2B | 11% | 0.4% |
| VOYAVoya Financial Inc. | $8.2B | 11% | 0.4% |
| GNWGenworth Financial Inc | $7.3B | 2% | 0.3% |
| BHFAMBrighthouse Financial Inc. | $6.8B | 2% | -0.0% |
| JXNJackson Financial Inc. | $6.7B | 9% | 0.3% |
| GLGlobe Life Inc. | $6.0B | 20% | 3.3% |
| FGF&G Annuities & Life Inc. | $5.7B | 16% | 0.8% |
| PRIPrimerica | $3.3B | 23% | 2.9% |
| Group median | — | 11% | 0.4% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
price / tangible bookAn insurer is worth a multiple of its tangible book value, and the multiple it deserves is set by the return it earns on that book. Type today’s price; we show what you would be paying against what Brighthouse Financial Inc.’s record justifies.
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The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered−13%/yr’20→’25
The justified multiple is (return on tangible equity − growth) ÷ (cost of equity − growth). An insurer earning exactly its cost of equity is worth about one times tangible book; the premium above that prices each point of durable excess return. A higher cost of equity lowers the justified multiple for an insurer.
Enter a price above to run it.
Price / tangible book—
Justified by the return—
Normalized return on tangible equity2%
Price / book—
Earnings yield—
P/E (3-yr avg ’23–’25)—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham applied the same standards to financial enterprises (Intelligent Investor ch.14): the 15× multiple cap on averaged earnings, and P/E times price-to-book at most 22.5. The gate marks the bargain-hunter’s floor, not a verdict.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Tangible book $5.5B on 57M shares, a 2% normalized return on it. The dials set the multiple such a return would justify; your price sets the multiple you are paying. It assumes the insurer keeps earning that return; an underwriting cycle, a reserve shortfall or a bad year on the float changes it, which is what the record and the 10-K are for.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Brighthouse Financial Inc. (BHFAM), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/BHFAM, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← BHFAL its page in the Manual BHFAN →
Industry order: ← BHFAL the Insurance — Life & Health chapter BHFAN →