Is Essent Group Ltd. (ESNT) a good stock to buy?

Price through Oct 9 market close · SEC data refreshed 17 days ago ⓘ · Not investment advice
Essent Group Ltd.
ESNT Financial Services Specialty Insurance📄 SEC filings ↗ CUSIP G3198U102
Deeply undervalued by model
Estimate is sensitive to cash-flow normalization, leverage and industry risk.
Passes every check ●●●●●

Everything we have tested points the right way. That is a reason to look closer, not a reason to buy — these are frequencies about groups of companies in the past, not a statement about this one.

What each rating means, in numbers

Can it survive? — Safe. Safer than 77% of the companies we cover, judged on the warning signs that came before companies that really did fail.

Business quality — Middling. Passes 5 of the 7 health checks we can measure — things like making a profit, turning it into cash, and not piling on debt. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, in every era and all twelve sectors.

How wild is the price? — Very calm. The share price swings about 22% in a typical year, which puts it in the calmest fifth. Out of every 100 companies that swung like this, about 0.3 went bankrupt within the year. Across the three periods we tested that ran from 0.1% to 0.7%.

What "tested" means here, and why there is no score out of 100

Tested means the read was measured against what actually happened afterwards, on a history that keeps the companies that were later delisted, using only figures that had been filed on the day they are used. Survival was ranked on companies that really did fail. What an owner keeps was tested across the universe from 2011 to 2025.

The full record of everything we have tested is on the research pages.

Which benchmark. Over the period we tested, the median listed company returned +5.8% a year while the S&P 500 returned about +13.9% — the index is weighted by size and was carried by a handful of enormous winners. So "beats the index" and "beats the other companies you could have bought" are different questions. Where a read says it picks better companies, it means the second one. None of these gets you an index fund's return, and we would rather say that than imply otherwise.

The quality read is the strongest thing we have tested: 131,000 company-quarters across 5,300 companies, where the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% against 1.4% for the strongest, holding in every era and all twelve sectors. It still says less likely to break, not likely to beat the market — every band in that study lost to the index at the median, because the median listed company does.

Each read is shown on its own rather than merged into a single score, so you can see which part is strong and which is weak instead of taking an average on trust.

▾ What goes into the smart-money reading
Valuation (price vs model IV) (40%) 10/100 → +4.0
Smart money (short interest + insider buying) (30%) 79/100 → +23.7
Macro backdrop (VIX, curve, credit, fear/greed + week-over-week momentum) (30%) 28/100 → +8.4
Total36/100

Contributions (weight × component score) sum to the total. This near-term score now includes fundamental health (leverage, FCF trend, DCF applicability). See the Financial Health section for the full balance-sheet read.

💵 Price $62.49 · through Oct 9 market close 📄 Financials SEC EDGAR · refreshed 17 days ago
Business type Insurance underwriter ⓘ Insurance underwriter — of the measures we can test inside insurance, only the cash-flow yield and the P/E separated better insurers from worse ones consistently. Price/book pointed the wrong way (the cheapest fifth did worse than the dearest) and growth in book value per share did nothing at all. The combined ratio sits near the front because it is the industry’s own test of whether the underwriting makes money, and we cannot test it — we do not hold it point-in-time. Never valued on enterprise value: an insurer holds investments against policy liabilities, so its cash is not surplus corporate cash.
8%
vs 14% normally
Low
The market, not this company tested

Chance the S&P 500 falls 10% or more in the next three months.

Counted from every day since 2006. Says nothing about ESNT — see the board for how it is measured.

📍 Where to start on this page, and what to look at first

How to read ESNT (bank / insurer)

Banks and insurers are valued on what they earn on their capital, not on free cash flow — a normal DCF misleads here.

Where to start — the sections that matter most for this stock
  1. 1 Bank / Insurance lens (P/TBV + ROE) ↓
    Price-to-tangible-book versus return-on-equity is how analysts actually judge a bank cheap or rich.
  2. 2 Financial-health screens ↓
    Watch the trend in profitability and asset quality, not the (not-applicable) bankruptcy score.
Or — what are you trying to decide?
A note on process: fear-driven decisions — including fear of missing out — tend to be the expensive ones. A stock up 10% a day for three days is excitement, not evidence. Whichever reader you are, the data below is there to be checked before anything is decided.
🚀
"It's surging — should I chase it?"
The momentum / FOMO trade. Before you chase, see whether the people who know it best are quietly selling into the rally.
⚖️
"Is it worth what it costs?"
The valuation trade. Our DCF, the growth the price implies, and a calculator you drive yourself.
🏷️
"Is it a cheap bargain?"
The deep-value trade. How far below assets and our value it trades — and whether it's cheap for a reason.

Is Essent Group Ltd. (ESNT) overvalued?

Macro: Neutral / mid-cycle

No, by our measure: the price is about 33% below what we think the business is worth.

ESNT trades at $62.49 vs an estimated intrinsic value of $93.68 — a 33.3% discount to model IV.

Margin of safety
Wide — price well below our value
Macro regime
Neutral / mid-cycle
No extreme readings in either direction. Stock selection matters more than macro positioning right now.

Not investment advice. The model can be wrong. Verify the assumptions in the sections below and consider consulting a licensed advisor for significant decisions.

What return would ESNT pay as a bond?

Not measurable here. Banks and insurers have no owner-earnings coupon in the operating sense — their deposits and float are the business. The bank lens (book value + return on equity) is the comparable read. See the cross-company ranking →

ⓘ Why does ESNT trade at $62.49?

Essent Group Ltd. has 100.0 million shares outstanding. At $62.49 per share, the market values all outstanding ESNT equity at $6.3 billion. That's market capitalization, not enterprise value — enterprise value also accounts for debt and cash (for a bank or insurer, borrowings and deposits are the raw material of the business, so enterprise value isn't a meaningful yardstick — the bank lens below uses book value and returns instead). The share price by itself tells you almost nothing — a company can pick any share price by splitting or issuing more shares. What matters is the total value (Market Cap?Market Cap — The total dollar value the market is assigning to the entire company.
Why it matters: This is the number that actually matters when comparing companies. Two companies with the same business but different share counts have the same market cap.
Reference: Mega cap >$200B · Large $10–200B · Mid $2–10B · Small $300M–2B · Micro <$300M
Full explanation →
) compared to what the business actually produces. This page values ESNT in Per Share?Per Share — A company-level figure divided by total shares — what one share represents.
Why it matters: Per-share metrics are the only way to fairly compare two companies with different share counts.
Full explanation →
economics — what each share represents of the underlying business. Play with the share-price calculator on the homepage →

Loading insider & short-seller data…

Who owns ESNT, and how it moves

From the SEC's own filings: every fund manager over $100M reports its holdings each quarter, and every officer and director reports theirs. Each point is what was public at the time.

Held by institutions (funds filing Form 13F)
92%-4.0 pts over the last year
2014-06 · 65%2026-06
Held by officers and directors
3.7%+0.3 pts over the last year
2014-12 · 4.7%2026-08

361 institutions reported holding it at the latest quarter-end.

0.02×
Moves with the market
Over the last year, a 1% move in the S&P 500 came with about a 0.0% move in ESNT.
0.58×
Moves with its sector (Financial Services)
The same measure against the XLF sector fund over the last year.

Safer than 77% of the stocks we cover

Failure risk
Safe
●●●●●
Rank 24 of 100
Went bankrupt within a year
<0.1%
●●●●●
Average company: 0.6%
What this rating means, and what it does not

What this rank is — Safe. Safer than 77% of the companies we cover. Out of every 100 companies ranked here, about <0.1% went bankrupt within the year, against 0.6% for the average company we cover. The rank comes from a model trained on every US filing since 2012, including 823 companies that really did fail, and scored each year by a version that had not seen that year.

What it is not — Not a trade. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010-2025. Every version lost money: the market already prices the distress and the survivors squeeze. A high rank is a reason to read the filings and to size for a total loss, not a reason to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.

▾ The numbers, the logic, and why not to trade on it

The logic. A model trained on every US filing since 2012 — including 823 companies that went bankrupt or stopped trading under a dollar — ranks each covered stock by its chance of failing in the next year, from its latest filing, price history and credit conditions. The rank is a position among peers; the table is a count of what happened to stocks in each position, scored each year by a model that had not seen that year.

Rank band went bankrupt within 12 monthsfell 80% or more (or failed) within 12 monthsfell 50% or more (or failed) within 6 months
All covered stocks (average) 0.59% 4.21% 8.51%
Finance (sector average) 0.13% 1.25% 3.09%
riskiest 1% 16.4% 33.0% 45.5%
next 2% (97-99) 5.9% 24.9% 38.2%
next 2% (95-97) 3.4% 21.2% 33.8%
next 5% (90-95) 1.6% 15.1% 27.3%
next 15% (75-90) 0.8% 8.5% 17.8%
next 25% (50-75) 0.2% 2.7% 6.2%
safest half ← this stock <0.1% 0.5% 2.1%

Why not to trade on it. We tested shorting these names and buying puts, spreads, straddles and condors on them at real option prices, 2010–2025: every version lost money. The market already prices the distress, and the survivors squeeze. Use a high rank to read the filings and to size for a total loss — not to bet against the company. A low rank says the balance sheet is calm, not that the price is sensible.

Scored from the filing of 2026-05-11; table generated 2026-09-18. Within Finance: rank 33 of 100. Rough one-year odds for this stock alone: bankruptcy 0.1%, an 80% fall 0.2% (the model overstates the middle of the range).

Takeover odds: higher than 42% of the stocks we cover. Companies ranked here were acquired within a year 3.0% of the time (average 4.6%).
▾ The logic, and why not to buy on it

The logic. Trained on 2,900 acquisitions since 2012, the model leans on size (small), age, retained earnings, asset growth, volatility and how many deals the sector has just seen. Announcement = the day the stock jumped, not the day the paperwork was filed.

top 1% 15.4% acquired within a year
next 2% (97-99) 10.3% acquired within a year
next 2% (95-97) 9.0% acquired within a year
next 5% (90-95) 7.3% acquired within a year
next 15% (75-90) 6.4% acquired within a year
next 25% (50-75) 4.8% acquired within a year
bottom half ← this stock 3.0% acquired within a year

Why not to buy on it. A takeover paid a median +22% on the day — but even in the top band about 6 in 7 companies are not bought, and those lag. Buying the whole top list returned what the S&P 500 did (2012–2023), and adding "cheap" or "beaten-down" filters did not change that. Read it as context for a thesis you already have, never as the thesis.

Checking filings for failure warnings…
Price against our valuation methods
Below every method
●●●●●
2 methods compared
What this rating means

What the rating says — Below every method. Every model's range sits above the current price, but that does not prove mispricing. The gap may reflect secular or cyclical pressures, leverage, or information not yet captured by the model. Review recent filings and test lower normalized cash-flow assumptions before relying on the valuation.

What it does not say — Not a forecast. This shows where today's price sits against several different ways of valuing the business. Where the methods disagree, the spread itself is the useful part - it tells you how much the answer depends on which one you trust.

For this kind of company, trust Operating cash flow yield first. We tested every method inside this business type: the cheapest fifth on Operating cash flow yield went on to beat the typical company of the same type by 2.3 points over the following year, holding in every period we tested, and clear of the next best (Price / Earnings, 1.0 points). That is against other companies of this type — not against an index fund.

Football field: where does the price sit?

Different valuation methods produce different fair-value ranges depending on assumptions. Plotting them together lets you see at a glance whether the current price is reasonable across approaches, or only one specific lens.

$57$111$164$217$270Current price $62.49If FCF grew -5%/yr → 13%/yr (flat 10-yr DCF sweep; model assumes 7.0%)$64.92$254Our model's scenarios (conservative → optimistic; ◆ base, ● weighted 40/35/25)$76.60$115.99weighted $93.68base $97.25
Every model's range sits above the current price, but that does not prove mispricing. The gap may reflect secular or cyclical pressures, leverage, or information not yet captured by the model. Review recent filings and test lower normalized cash-flow assumptions before relying on the valuation.

Industry multiples sourced from: industry similar to Insurance. See the Peer Basket section below for the peer comparison and its limited-comparables caveat.

How does ESNT stack up against its closest peers?

We take the 4 same-industry companies most similar to ESNT (similar size) and check what investors are paying for each dollar of their revenue (or profits). If ESNT is much more expensive on the same yardstick, that's a red flag — unless you have a specific reason it deserves a premium. For a leveraged business, FCF yield (in the table) is usually more reliable than EV/Sales, because revenue multiples ignore differences in margins and debt.

▾ What's "EV / Sales" in plain English?

EV (Enterprise Value) = market cap + total debt − cash. It's "what you'd pay to buy the entire company outright" — you pay the market cap to shareholders and take over their debt, but you keep their cash. EV is fairer than market cap alone because it includes the debt the new owner inherits.

EV / Sales = EV ÷ annual revenue. So "2.5×" means investors pay $2.50 of enterprise value per $1 of yearly sales. Higher = market is paying more per dollar of sales (usually because they expect future growth or fat margins).

p25 / median / p75 are the 25th, 50th (middle), and 75th percentile of the peers' multiples. Half the peers fall between p25 and p75. The median (p50) is the typical peer — that's the benchmark we compare to.

What peers trade at (p25 / median / p75)
EV / Sales?EV / Sales — For every $1 of yearly revenue, this is how many dollars investors pay to own the whole business (including debt).
Why it matters: Works for pre-profit growth companies where P/E and FCF don't apply. The most apples-to-apples cross-company multiple because it ignores accounting choices.
Reference: 1–3x for mature companies · 4–10x for software/SaaS · 10–20x for hypergrowth · >20x is rare and demanding
Full explanation →
1.0x / 4.1x / 4.5x

Bold middle number = median peer. Half the peers trade above it, half below. Computed over 4 same-industry peers; implausible multiples excluded.

Peer-implied value check
$52.84
If ESNT traded at the typical (median) peer's EV/Sales multiple, the share price would be about $52.84.
Plain English: the stock currently trades at $62.49. That's 18.3% above what peer multiples imply — modest premium, probably justifiable if fundamentals are slightly better than peers.

⚠️ Important caveat: peer multiples only work if the peers are genuinely comparable. Always check the peer list below — if the auto-picker grabbed micro-caps or unrelated businesses, the comparison is noise. A medical-device giant priced against tiny biotech startups won't produce a useful signal.

▾ View peer list (8)
Ticker Company Industry Mcap EV/EBIT FCF Yield
MTG MGIC INVESTMENT CORP Specialty Insurance $5.3B — 12.5%
RDN RADIAN GROUP INC Specialty Insurance $4.5B — 12.1%
ORI OLD REPUBLIC INTERNATIONAL CORP Specialty Insurance $9.0B — 10.0%
NMIH NMI Holdings, Inc. Specialty Insurance $3.2B — 11.7%
VNO VORNADO REALTY TRUST REITs ·fallback $6.4B — 2.2%
WDH Waterdrop Inc. Insurance Brokers ·fallback $5.5B 104.1x 1.3%
YCS ProShares Trust II Investment Banking ·fallback $7.1B — 24.0%
VOYA Voya Financial, Inc. Life Insurance ·fallback $7.4B 9.1x 8.3%

How to value an insurer (not a bank, not a DCF)

An insurer collects premiums today and pays claims later. The money held in between — the float — is invested, so the balance sheet is full of investments that belong, eventually, to policyholders. That makes free-cash-flow DCF meaningless and enterprise value actively misleading. What matters is the book value of shareholder equity, the return earned on it, and whether book value per share compounds year after year. For property & casualty underwriters, the combined ratio says whether the insurance itself made money before any investment income.

Price-to-Book (P/B)?Price-to-Book (P/B) — Share price divided by book value per share — what you pay for $1 of accounting equity.
Why it matters: For banks and insurers, book value is the regulatory capital they earn returns on. P/B is the cleanest comparison: 1.0× means buying the bank at the same price the accountants say it's worth.
Reference: 0.8–1.2× = fair for average bank · 1.5–2.0× = solid franchise · >2.5× = premium · <0.8× = potentially cheap or distress
Full explanation →
1.09×
Plain English: you pay $1.09 for every $1 of the insurer's accounting equity ($57.55/share). Insurers trade below book when the market doubts the reserves are big enough, and above book when underwriting is consistently profitable.
Return on Equity (ROE)?Return on Equity (ROE) — How much profit the company generates on every dollar of shareholder equity.
Why it matters: For a bank, ROE is the engine. A bank earning 15% on equity will compound book value at ~15%/year if it retains earnings. Combined with P/B, ROE tells you whether a premium price is supported by returns.
Reference: <8% = weak · 10–12% = solid · 15%+ = excellent · >20% sustained = exceptional franchise
Full explanation →
+12.0%
Plain English: what the insurer earned on shareholder equity over the last year. Underwriting profit and investment income both land here, so a good year in markets can flatter it — look at several years, not one.
Price / Earnings (P/E)?P/E Ratio — Stock price divided by annual earnings per share — how much you pay for $1 of yearly earnings.
Why it matters: High P/E = market expects fast growth or you are overpaying. Low P/E = market expects slow growth or the stock is cheap (sometimes for good reason).
Reference: 12–20 for mature businesses · 25–50 for growth · 80+ for speculative
Full explanation →
9.1×
Plain English: at $6.90 of earnings per share. Insurance earnings swing with catastrophes and reserve releases, so a single year's P/E is a weak guide on its own.
Around book value — the usual range for an average underwriter.
Plain English: priced near its accounting equity. What matters from here is whether book value per share keeps growing.

This lens skips Altman Z and Piotroski (both validated on industrial companies) and skips enterprise value entirely — an insurer's investments back policy liabilities and are not surplus cash. The things to check in the 10-K are reserve development (did past years' claims cost more than reserved?), the investment portfolio's credit quality, and catastrophe exposure.

Quality & solvency checks

Cheap stocks can be cheap for a reason. These screens warn when a low valuation comes paired with structural fragility.

Business quality
Middling
●●●●●
Passes 5 of 7 checks
What these health ratings mean, in numbers

Business quality — Middling. Passes 5 of the 7 health checks we can measure — making a profit, turning it into cash, not piling on debt, not issuing shares. Across 131,000 company-quarters the weakest scorers went on to fail at 5.4% within a year against 1.4% for the strongest, and that held in every era and all twelve sectors. It says "less likely to break", not "likely to beat the market".

The workings
Altman Z-Score?Altman Z-Score — A bankruptcy-risk score combining 5 financial ratios into one number. Predictive of bankruptcy within 2 years.
Why it matters: Cheap-looking stocks (low P/E or P/B) often have low Z-scores because the market knows the company is dying. Z-score warns you before you fall into a value trap.
Reference: > 3.0 = safe zone · 1.81–3.0 = grey zone · < 1.81 = distress zone
Full explanation →
Not Applicable

Altman Z was calibrated on industrial firms and doesn't apply to insurers — the balance sheet is dominated by investments held against policy liabilities, not working capital. See the Insurance Valuation Lens above for price-to-book, return on equity, book-value growth and the combined ratio — the measures analysts in that industry actually use.

Piotroski F-Score?Piotroski F-Score — A 9-point quality checklist scoring profitability, leverage, and operating efficiency.
Why it matters: High score = fundamentals improving. Low score = deteriorating. Especially powerful for filtering cheap stocks: cheap + high F-score historically outperforms; cheap + low F-score is often a value trap.
Reference: 7–9 = strong · 4–6 = mediocre · 0–3 = weak
Full explanation →
Not Applicable

Piotroski F was built for non-financial firms (gross margin, asset turnover and current ratio all assume an industrial cost structure). For insurers the equivalent quality signals are the combined ratio, reserve development and investment-portfolio credit quality — see the Insurance Valuation Lens above.

What if you assume different inputs?

Here's where we land — and what happens if you change the assumptions. Drag the sliders to set your own Discount Rate?Discount Rate — The annual return you demand for taking single-stock risk instead of buying a safe Treasury or index fund.
Why it matters: Higher discount rate = stricter valuation (a stock has to produce more cash to be worth holding). Lower = more generous.
Reference: 8–12% is standard · 9–10% matches S&P 500 historical return · Below 7% is illogical for single-stock risk
Full explanation →
(the annual return you demand for single-stock risk) and terminal growth; the value updates live so you can see whether the stock looks cheaper or richer. The discount rate starts at 9.0%, the figure our model used for ESNT. Open Advanced to also change beta, growth and the rate path.

Note: the calculator opens at our published value of $93.68 — it is initialised to the same scenario-weighted result, so the two match exactly on load. The moment you move a slider, the value below becomes a single-path what-if at your assumptions (not the three-scenario weighting), which is why it can differ from the headline once you've touched it.

Scenario-weighted model IV (40/35/25 assumed weights)
$93.68
It trades at
$62.49
Margin of safety
33.3%
Price is 33% below model IV — it looks undervalued. Change the assumptions below to see what would justify today's price.
We value this stock at two discount rates and report the range between them:
8.5% — beta-based (CAPM), from this stock's Beta?Beta — How much the stock moves when the overall market moves. 1.0 = moves with the market; 1.5 = moves 50% more than the market.
Why it matters: Higher beta = more volatile = should demand higher discount rate. Low beta stocks (utilities, consumer staples) move less.
Reference: Most stocks 0.5–1.5 · Defensives ~0.3 · High-vol tech ~1.5–2.0
Full explanation →
of 0.55.
The safe Treasury rate plus a premium scaled by how much more (or less) volatile the stock is than the market.
9.0% — sector/quality tier. A simpler hurdle set by industry and business durability: lower for stable, wide-moat companies; higher for speculative or micro-caps.
The headline value and this calculator start at 9.0% — the more conservative sector/quality rate (we use the more conservative sector/quality rate when model applicability is limited or the balance sheet is stretched). Drag the slider to the other rate to see the full range.
4.5% (risk-free)9-10% normal18% (deep-risk)
0%2-3% (GDP)5% (rarely sustainable)

A full intrinsic value isn't shown for ESNT because it's valued with a bank residual-income model this quick calculator doesn't replicate — see our published value above and the sector lens for the right metrics.

For comparison — the FCF growth today's price already assumes
—
—

—

⚙ Advanced — tinker with every input (beta, growth, rate path, margin → full intrinsic value)
Where the discount rate comes from — discount rate = risk-free + beta × equity-risk-premium
What you'd earn risk-free from government bonds — the floor under every other rate. Slide it down to model the market expecting rate cuts (value rises); up for higher-for-longer.
The extra yearly return investors demand for owning stocks instead of safe bonds — the price of risk. History runs ~4.5–6.5%; we default to 5.5% (slightly conservative). It's an estimate, not a law — lower it if you think equities are less risky than that.
Inflation reduces the purchasing power of a nominal return: a 9% gain at 3% inflation is about 6% in real terms. The intrinsic value above is already in today's dollars (a nominal DCF carries inflation in both the growth and the discount rate), so this switch does not change the value — it restates the return in real terms.
Higher beta → higher discount rate (sets the rate above). 1.0 = moves with the market.
What you think ESNT can grow FCF for ~5 years, then fades to terminal.
All inputs start at the values our model used.

    Copy shareable link to this scenario →

    Price$62.49
    Model IV$93.68
    Margin of Safety33.3%
    DCF applicabilityMedium
    Return to IV (3yr, annualized)14.4%

    Essent Group Ltd. appears undervalued, with the price 33.3% below intrinsic value?Intrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
    Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
    Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
    Full explanation →
    (a 33.3% discount / margin of safety?Margin of Safety — How much room there is between the current price and intrinsic value, in your favor.
    Why it matters: Benjamin Graham's core idea: only buy when there is enough discount that you can be wrong about your assumptions and still not lose money.
    Reference: 20%+ is the classic Graham target · 30%+ for higher-risk companies
    Full explanation →
    ); equivalently the intrinsic value is about 43% ABOVE the price. The market is likely discounting the stock due to its moderate franchise durability score of 2/5, suggesting some competitive vulnerability despite consistent profitability and positive cash flow. The biggest risk to our model's base assumptions is that the underlying business growth falls below the modeled +7.0%, potentially due to increased competition or market shifts impacting its mortgage insurance business.

    ⚠️ Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).

    As of 17 days ago

    Anatomy of a share

    What you're buying per share. Bars are at the same scale so you can see the relative size of revenue, costs, cash flow, and debt — not just read them in a table.

    ESNT Essent Group Ltd. stock anatomy showing per-share revenue, operating expenses, free cash flow, and debt
    54.7%
    profit
    Where each $1 of revenue goes
    Net profit — 54.7¢ of every dollar ($6.90/sh — latest fiscal-year net income per share)
    Costs & taxes — 45.3¢ (on $12.61 revenue/sh)
    Net margin = net income ÷ revenue (most recent fiscal year).
    Plain English: each share (at $62) represents $12.61 of revenue per share per year, $6.90 of net income per current share, and $8.28 of owner-earnings free cash flow per current share (latest fiscal year) from the latest fiscal year. Debt-per-share isn't a meaningful figure for a bank or insurer — its liabilities (deposits, policy reserves, wholesale funding) are the business itself. Judge leverage with the capital ratios in the bank lens instead. The DCF does not start from that single year — it instead starts from a EPS basis (residual-income model) of $6.90 per share to capture a full cycle.
    What's free cash flow / what do these mean?

    Revenue per share — how much the business earns from customers, divided by the number of shares outstanding. Top of the income statement.

    Earnings per share — profit left after operating costs, interest, and taxes, per share. Two versions appear on this page and are not interchangeable: GAAP diluted EPS uses the company's weighted-average diluted share count during the reporting period (this is the "earnings" in "price-to-earnings"); net income per current share divides annual net income by today's share count. They differ whenever the share count has changed.

    Owner-earnings free cash flow per share — the cash the business produces for shareholders. Savng's owner-earnings FCF subtracts capital expenditures and stock-based compensation from operating cash flow (SBC is a real dilution cost even though it's non-cash). This is deliberately more conservative than "standard" FCF, which subtracts only capital expenditures — so our figure is lower than the headline FCF you'll see elsewhere. FCF funds dividends, buybacks, debt repayment, and acquisitions; a company can report positive earnings yet negative FCF.

    Debt per share — total interest-bearing borrowings divided by shares. High debt-per-share next to thin FCF-per-share is a fragility signal.

    What you actually need to decide

    Every stock price is a disagreement. Here's the single thing that must go right for the bulls, the single thing that breaks the thesis, and the concrete signposts to watch so you can update your view as real results arrive.

    🐂 The Bull Case
    Underlying cash flow must stabilize or grow around the modeled business rate of +7.0% annually, supported by continued demand for mortgage insurance and effective risk management. This growth is crucial for the company to realize its intrinsic value?Intrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
    Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
    Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
    Full explanation →
    .
    🐻 The Bear Case
    The biggest operating risk is that the franchise/durability score of 2/5 proves indicative of increasing competitive pressures or regulatory changes, leading to a decline in revenue or margin compression that causes per-share cash flow to fall below the market's implied expectations.
    📌 Signposts to watch — update your view as these print
    • Changes in new insurance written (NIW) volumes
    • Trends in loss ratios and claims severity
    • Regulatory developments impacting the mortgage insurance industry

    The trend, in plain numbers (FY2024 → FY2025, latest reported)

    Straight from the financial statements — no model, no opinion. For a small or unprofitable company, the direction of these numbers usually tells you more than any single valuation.

    ✅ Improving
    • Revenue grew +1% to $1.26B.
    ⚠ Worsening
    • Net income fell -5% to $690.0M.

    Roughly flat: Free cash flow was roughly flat (within 2%) at $827.8M.

    Management & Leadership

    Mark Casale serves as the Chairman, CEO, and President, leading Essent Group Ltd. David B Weinstock is the SVP and CFO, managing the company's financial operations. Other key executives include Mary Lourdes Gibbons, SVP and Chief Legal Officer, and Christopher G Curran, President of Essent Guaranty, Inc.

    Mark Casale
    Chairman, CEO and President — Chief Executive Officer (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-14)

    Chairman, CEO and President

    David B Weinstock
    SVP and CFO — Chief Financial Officer (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-17)

    SVP and CFO

    Mary Lourdes Gibbons
    SVP and Chief Legal Officer (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-14)
    Christopher G Curran
    Pres., Essent Guaranty, Inc. (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-14)
    Vijay Bhasin
    SVP and Chief Risk Officer (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-14)
    Anu Karna
    Director (per SEC Form 4, 2026-09-14)

    What They Make

    Essent Group Ltd. provides private mortgage insurance and reinsurance for residential mortgage loans. Their primary customers are mortgage lenders and investors who pay for the insurance to protect against credit losses.

    End Markets

    Residential Mortgage LendersMortgage InvestorsReinsurance Market

    Revenue Drivers

    Mortgage insurance premiums
    Investment income
    Reinsurance premiums
    Market Cap: 6.3BBeta: 0.55

    Why Is It Priced Like This?

    Why Customers Pay

    Credit risk protection for mortgage lenders
    Facilitates access to mortgage financing for borrowers
    Capital relief for financial institutions
    Intrinsic Value$93.68
    Discount to IV 33.3%
    Return to IV (3yr, annualized) 14.4%

    The market prices ESNT at a 33.3% discount to the model's intrinsic value?Intrinsic Value — Our DCF model's estimate of what each share is mathematically worth based on projected cash flows.
    Why it matters: Compare to current price. Below IV = potentially undervalued. Above IV = priced for growth that must actually happen.
    Reference: Model-derived; quality depends on data and assumptions.
    Full explanation →
    . This is likely due to the company's franchise/durability score of 2/5, which suggests a less robust competitive advantage compared to peers. Separately, the reverse DCF?Reverse DCF — Instead of asking "what is this stock worth?", asks "what growth rate is the current market price already assuming?"
    Why it matters: It crystallizes the bull thesis as a single number you can argue with. If the market expects 40% growth for 10 years and you do not believe that, the stock is overvalued.
    Reference: 10–15% = sustainable for strong companies · 20–25% = exceptional · 30%+ = historically very rare
    Full explanation →
    implies the price is consistent with roughly N/A annual per-share cash-flow growth, indicating the market is not pricing in aggressive future expansion.

    Three Scenarios, Weighted
    ScenarioIVUpside from today's priceWeight
    Conservative$76.6022.6%40%
    Base$97.2555.6%35%
    Optimistic$115.9985.6%25%
    Weighted$93.6849.9%100%

    Reading the last column: it is the move from today's price to each value (IV ÷ price − 1). The headline "premium/discount to model IV" measures the same gap from the value's side (price ÷ IV − 1), so the two percentages differ in size and sign by construction — e.g. a price 8% above value is a value 7.4% below price.

    Business Model & Valuation

    How They Make Money

    Collecting premiums for mortgage insurance policies
    Generating investment income from its insurance float
    Providing mortgage reinsurance services

    Residual Income Medium

    Balance-sheet financial (Specialty Insurance): residual income model - book value is meaningful anchor.

    In plain English: we estimate ESNT's value by projecting its book value plus the excess return it earns on that capital into the future and converting it back to what it's worth today. We start from $6.90 per share (EPS basis (residual-income model)), assume it grows 7.0% per year for about 5 years (then gradually fades), and discount everything at 9.0% — the yearly return a buyer should demand for this much risk. After that it's assumed to grow 3.0% per year forever (roughly the long-run pace of the whole economy). A higher discount rate or slower growth means a lower value, and vice-versa — change any of these yourself in the calculator above.
    Book value / share$6.90EPS basis (residual-income model) — smoothed, not the latest single year
    Growth (g₁) — 5yr7.0%Source: historical CAGR + sector defaults
    Discount Rate (r)9.0%
    Terminal Growth (gT)3.0%
    Show advanced inputs
    Sector Default8.0%

    What this model does NOT do: this is a consolidated owner-earnings FCF model. Standalone segment assumptions: none. It does not project premium growth, underwriting (combined ratio) and investment income independently; their combined effect is embedded in the historical revenue and cash-flow trend the model extrapolates. The calculator above can only approximate a segment's impact through the single consolidated growth rate — it cannot model any one line separately. For a true segment-level view, build a separate model from the company's segment disclosures.

    Maturity & Competitive Position

    Financial institution

    Moat Signals

    Regulatory barriers to entry
    Established relationships with lenders
    Proprietary underwriting models

    Revenue is growing at 5.2%/yr over 4 years, from $1029M to $1.3 billion.

    Geography & Markets

    Essent Group Ltd. operates primarily in the United States, providing mortgage insurance services. Geographic mix data is not available from current filings.

    Geographic Risks

    Concentration risk within the US housing market
    Interest rate sensitivity affecting mortgage demand

    Market Signals

    These are timing signals, not value signals — they describe the stock's recent price behavior, not what the business is worth. Use them for the "the thesis looks good, but is now the moment?" question. Each tile below explains what it's saying.

    Model bullish, tape neutral
    RSI?RSI — Relative Strength Index — a 0-100 momentum gauge. Above 70 = overbought; below 30 = oversold.
    Why it matters: Short-term contrarian indicator. Extreme readings often precede mean reversion, though not always.
    Reference: 30–70 normal · >70 overbought · <30 oversold
    Full explanation →
    (14)
    35.5NeutralMomentum is balanced — neither overbought nor oversold.
    MACD?MACD — Moving Average Convergence Divergence — compares a fast and a slow price trend to gauge momentum direction.
    Why it matters: When the fast line crosses above the slow line, short-term momentum is turning up; below, turning down. A timing cue, not a value signal.
    Reference: Line above signal = bullish momentum · below = bearish
    Full explanation →
    BearishLine below signalThe fast trend is below the slow trend — short-term momentum is currently downward.
    50-Day Average$67.56Price below (-7.5%)Price below its 50-day average = near-term downtrend.
    200-Day Average$63.00Price belowThe 200-day line is the long-term trend divider — above it is generally considered a bull market for the stock.
    50 vs 200 CrossGolden50-day above 200-dayA "golden cross" — the medium trend has overtaken the long trend (often read as bullish).

    Technicals describe price, not the business. A great company can have a "bearish" tape (a buying chance) and a weak one a "bullish" tape (a trap). Pair these with the valuation and health sections above.

    Data Quality & Risk Flags (4 notes — click to expand/collapse)

    Guardrail Notes (4)
    • Financial sector: using residual income model. IV = Book Value + PV(excess earnings).
    • Discount rate floored from 8.8% to 9.0% (financial sector minimum).
    • Growth clamped from 8% to 7% (must be < discount rate 9%).
    • Discount rate floored from 8.5% to 9.0% (financial sector minimum).

    Financial Statements (5-year tables — click to expand)

    From Essent Group Ltd.'s SEC filings (EDGAR).

    Income (5yr)

    YearRevenueNet IncomeEPS
    20251.3B690.0M$6.90
    20241.2B729.4M$6.85
    20231.1B696.4M$6.50
    20221.0B831.4M$7.72
    20211.0B681.8M$6.11

    Cash Flow (5yr)

    YearOperating CFCapEx− SBCFree Cash Flow
    2025 856.1M 7.4M 20.8M 827.8M
    2024 861.5M 6.8M 24.8M 830.0M
    2023 763.0M 4.0M 18.4M 740.6M
    2022 588.8M 4.0M 18.4M 566.5M
    2021 709.3M 2.5M 20.8M 685.9M

    How we define FCF: operating cash flow − capital expenditure − stock-based compensation (owner-earnings basis — SBC is a real cost to shareholders even though it's non-cash). Latest year: 856.1M − 7.4M − 20.8M (stock-based comp) = 827.8M. This is the same owner-earnings FCF definition the valuation model uses, though the DCF's starting value is a EPS basis (residual-income model), not this single year.

    Balance Sheet

    Total Assets7.4B
    Total Liabilities1.7B
    Equity5.8B
    Methodology by Pouyan Golshani, MD — founder of Gighz. Savng was built by a physician for busy professionals: every number on this page comes from SEC filings (EDGAR) and FINRA data through transparent, rules-based models — no analyst opinions, no hidden inputs. How we calculate every number →

    The questions people ask about ESNT

    Is Essent Group Ltd. (ESNT) a good stock to buy?

    Essent Group Ltd. (ESNT) trades about 33% below our $93.68 estimate of what the business is worth, so the price is not the obstacle. The questions are why it is cheap: check the failure-warning checks, the debt, and whether insiders are buying, all on this page. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.

    Is Essent Group Ltd. (ESNT) overvalued?

    No, by our measure. Essent Group Ltd. (ESNT) trades at $62.49, about 33% below our estimate of $93.68 for what the business is worth. This is educational research from SEC filings, not investment advice.

    What is ESNT's intrinsic value?

    Our model estimates ESNT is worth about $93.68 per share, built from the cash the business is expected to generate, taken from its SEC filings. The market price is $62.49.

    Where do these numbers come from?

    From Essent Group Ltd.'s own SEC filings (10-K and 10-Q), Form 4 insider filings and daily market prices. Every figure on the page links to how it was calculated, and the model's weak spots are listed next to its results.

    ⚠️ Not investment advice. Automated model outputs, last refreshed 17 days ago (the analysis-refresh date, not the latest filing period). All models have blind spots. Full disclaimer →
    🔔 Follow $ESNT — free insider alerts
    One email when an insider buys $ESNT on the open market with their own cash — or notably sells outside a scheduled plan. Routine and automated trades filtered out. Follow up to 3 stocks free; Portfolio Watch covers your whole list plus valuation & risk alerts. Double opt-in, unsubscribe anytime.