Assurant (NYSE:AIZ) versus Scor (OTCMKTS:SCRYY) Head-To-Head Review

Assurant (NYSE:AIZ) and Scor (OTCMKTS:SCRYY) are both finance companies, but which is the better investment? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their risk, profitability, valuation, dividends, earnings, institutional ownership and analyst recommendations.

Dividends

Assurant pays an annual dividend of $3.52 per share and has a dividend yield of 1.4%. Scor pays an annual dividend of $0.15 per share and has a dividend yield of 4.1%. Assurant pays out 18.0% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Scor pays out 26.3% 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. Assurant has increased its dividend for 21 consecutive years.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

92.7% of Assurant shares are held by institutional investors. 0.5% of Assurant shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of current ratings for Assurant and Scor, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Assurant	0	1	8	1	3.00
Scor	0	2	4	0	2.67

Assurant presently has a consensus target price of $275.83, suggesting a potential upside of 5.82%. Given Assurant’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts plainly believe Assurant is more favorable than Scor.

Risk & Volatility

Assurant has a beta of 0.56, suggesting that its share price is 44% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Scor has a beta of 0.58, suggesting that its share price is 42% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Assurant and Scor”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Assurant	$12.81 billion	1.01	$872.70 million	$19.55	13.33
Scor	$17.39 billion	0.38	$962.82 million	$0.57	6.39

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

Profitability

This table compares Assurant and Scor’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Assurant	7.60%	20.32%	3.26%
Scor	5.79%	20.83%	2.48%

Summary

Assurant beats Scor on 13 of the 18 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Assurant

Assurant, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, provides business services that supports, protects, and connects consumer purchases in North America, Latin America, Europe, and the Asia Pacific. The company operates through two segments: Global Lifestyle and Global Housing. The Global Lifestyle segment offers mobile device solutions, and extended service contracts and related services for consumer electronics and appliances, and credit and other insurance products; and vehicle protection, commercial equipment, and other related services. The Global Housing segment provides lender-placed homeowners, manufactured housing, and flood insurance; renters insurance and related products; and voluntary manufactured housing, and condominium and homeowners insurance products. The company was formerly known as Fortis, Inc. and changed its name to Assurant, Inc. in February 2004. Assurant, Inc. was founded in 1892 and is headquartered in Atlanta, Georgia.

About Scor

SCOR SE, together with its subsidiaries, provides life and non-life reinsurance products in Europe, the Middle East, Africa, the Americas, Latin America, and Asia Pacific. It operates in two segments, SCOR P&C and SCOR L&H. The SCOR P&C segment offers reinsurance products in the areas of property, motors, casualty treaties, credit and surety, decennial insurance, aviation, marine and energy, engineering, agricultural risks, and property catastrophes; specialties insurance products, including business solutions, political and credit risks, cyber, and environmental liability; and business ventures and partnerships. The SCOR L&H segment provides life reinsurance products, such as protection for mortality, morbidity, behavioral risks, disability, long-term care, critical illness, medical, and personal accident. This segment also provides financial solutions that combine traditional life reinsurance with financial components and provide liquidity, balance sheet, solvency, and income improvements to clients; longevity solutions that include products covering the risk of negative deviation from expected results due to the insured or annuitant living longer than assumed in the pricing of insurance covers provided by insurers or pension funds; and distribution solutions. In addition, it is involved in the asset management business. SCOR SE was founded in 1970 and is headquartered in Paris, France.