Share count
29Mpeak FY2025
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STC, Stewart Information Services Corporation
Insurance — Property & Casualty financial
Stewart Information Services Corporation is a customer-focused, global title insurance and real estate services company offering products and services through our direct operations, network of approved agencies and other companies within the Stewart family.
One of the largest global title insurance companies and underwriters in the industry, Stewart provides services to homebuyers and sellers, residential and commercial real estate professionals, mortgage lenders and servicers, title agencies, real estate attorneys and home builders.
Stewart also provides credit and real estate data services, property preservation and field services, valuation management services, online notarization and closing services, search services, home and personal insurance services, tax-deferred exchanges, and technology services to streamline the real estate process.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$2.9B
+17.3% YoY · 5% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $3.1B 5-yr avg $2.8B
Revenue $781M +27.7% vs yr-ago qtr
Net income $19M yr-ago $5M
Net margin 2.4% yr-ago 0.9%
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
- Underwriting discipline and the float. What decides it: whether the combined ratio stays below 100% so the policies make money on their own, how large the float is against equity, and what that float earns once it is invested. 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?
- The underwriting result is not cleanly tagged in the filings. Book value per share, the measure Berkshire is judged on, has compounded about 9% a year across the record. The float runs about 0.3× equity, the leverage that magnifies both the underwriting and the investing. Whether the discipline holds through a soft market, and how the float is invested, are what the 10-K decides.
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 | |||||||||||
| $2.0B | $2.0B | $1.9B | $1.9B | $2.3B | $3.3B | $3.1B | $2.3B | $2.5B | $2.9B | $3.1B | RevenueRevenue |
| $19M | $19M | $20M | $20M | $19M | $17M | $22M | $45M | $55M | $58M | $59M | Investment incomeInv. inc. |
| $55M | $49M | $48M | $79M | $155M | $323M | $162M | $30M | $73M | $116M | $129M | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 26% | 23% | 22% | 25% | 24% | 23% | 24% | 33% | 26% | 23% | 23% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| $123M | $108M | $84M | $166M | $276M | $390M | $192M | $83M | $136M | $206M | $231M | Operating cash flowOp. cash |
| $105M | $92M | $74M | $149M | $261M | $350M | $144M | $45M | $95M | $132M | $154M | Owner earningsOwner earn. |
| 9% | 7% | 7% | 11% | 15% | 25% | 12% | 2% | 5% | 7% | 8% | Return on equityROE |
| 4% | 3% | 3% | 7% | 12% | 22% | 9% | −1% | 1% | 3% | 4% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $463M | $481M | $462M | $459M | $496M | $550M | $549M | $528M | $512M | $524M | $517M | Float (reserves)Float |
| $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $2.0B | $2.8B | $2.7B | $2.7B | $2.7B | $3.3B | $3.2B | Total assetsAssets |
| $208M | $175M | $215M | $354M | $453M | $504M | $273M | $272M | $257M | $370M | $317M | Cash & investmentsCash+inv |
| $641M | $672M | $674M | $747M | $1.0B | $1.3B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.4B | $1.6B | $1.6B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 23.5M | 23.6M | 23.7M | 23.8M | 24.9M | 27.2M | 27.3M | 27.5M | 28.1M | 28.6M | 30.8M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $2.36 | $2.06 | $2.01 | $3.31 | $6.22 | $11.90 | $5.94 | $1.11 | $2.61 | $4.05 | $4.20 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $4.47 | $3.88 | $3.10 | $6.28 | $10.47 | $12.90 | $5.26 | $1.64 | $3.38 | $4.63 | $4.99 | Owner earnings / shareOE/sh |
| $1.19 | $1.19 | $1.19 | $1.19 | $1.21 | $1.35 | $1.63 | $1.84 | $1.92 | $2.05 | $1.98 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $27.32 | $28.49 | $28.44 | $31.46 | $40.34 | $47.19 | $49.81 | $49.83 | $49.85 | $57.46 | $53.17 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +2.0%/yr | +2.2%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +0.4%/yr | −15.0%/yr |
| EPS | +6.2%/yr | −8.2%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +6.3%/yr | +11.0%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +14.3%/yr | +33.7%/yr |
| Book value / share | +8.6%/yr | +7.3%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$2.9Blow FY2018
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?
- Not enough dataIndustry peers: median 105%
What this means
Premiums or claims weren't found in the filing data.
- Below the cost of equityNet income $116M ÷ equity $1.6BIndustry peers: median 14%
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.
The float
- Float (reserves) $524M0.3× equityLoss and claim reserves $524M, 0.3× 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.
- Investment income $58M11.0% on the floatNet investment income $58M, 11.0% on the float
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.
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 Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Innovation initiatives include implementing advanced technologies, use of artificial intelligence (AI), processes and techniques to automate and streamline certain manual processes during title search, insurance policy issuance and real estate transaction settlement to improve the manner and timeliness of delivering pr…”
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.
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.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
Goodwill & intangibles$1.6B49% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equity78%goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital
Cash spent acquiring$1.4Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $317M of capital spent building
None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
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” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | Mr. Eppinger | $5.1M | $10.1M | $350M |
| 2022 | Mr. Eppinger | $3.9M | −$1.6M | $144M |
| 2023 | Mr. Eppinger | $4.2M | $5.1M | $45M |
| 2024 | Mr. Eppinger | $5.4M | $6.2M | $95M |
| 2025 | Mr. Eppinger | $7.9M | $8.0M | $132M |
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. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- Stock-based compensation$17M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 1% of revenue, equal to 10% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
Peers, Insurance — Property & Casualty
The same industry, side by side on the underwriting 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 | Combined ratio | Loss ratio | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| FAFFirst American Fin | $7.5B | — | — | 12% |
| KMPBKemper Corporation | $4.8B | — | 78% | 6% |
| PRIPrimerica | $3.3B | 131% | 43% | 23% |
| SPNTSiriusPoint Ltd. | $3.2B | 111% | 67% | 10% |
| STCStewart Information Services Corporation | $2.9B | — | — | 8% |
| HGHamilton Insurance Group Ltd. Class B | $2.9B | 100% | — | 14% |
| RLIRLI Corp | $1.9B | 90% | 48% | 20% |
| KNSLKinsale Capital Group Inc. | $1.9B | — | 57% | 18% |
| Group median | — | — | — | 13% |
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 Stewart Information Services Corporation’s record justifies.
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The assumptions
Tangible book / share, delivered−31%/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 equity29%
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 $46M on 30M shares, a 29% 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, "Stewart Information Services Corporation (STC), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/STC, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← STBA its page in the Manual STE →
Industry order: ← SPNT the Insurance — Property & Casualty chapter THG →