We recently published an article titled Why These 15 Insurance Stocks Are Skyrocketing So Far In 2025. In this article, we are going to take a look at where Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC) stands against the other insurance stocks.

Insurance stocks are back in the spotlight after Berkshire Hathaway’s annual shareholder report for 2024. These stocks are not only benefiting from stable cash flows, but they are also benefiting from higher investment yields and premium growth as inflation trends have benefited insurers.

Moreover, AI and tech innovations are starting to spill over into many other industries, which include insurance. It is also benefiting from a demographic tailwind as the growing “silver segment” requires more life and health insurance.

As such, it is worth looking into some of the top performers in this industry. There are good reasons behind each of the stocks’ uptrends.

Insurance house, car and family health live concept. The insurance agent presents the toys that symbolize the coverage.

Methodology

For this article, I screened the top-performing defense stocks year-to-date. Stocks that I have covered recently will be excluded from this list.

I will also mention the number of hedge fund investors in these stocks. Why are we interested in the stocks that hedge funds pile into? The reason is simple: our research has shown that we can outperform the market by imitating the top stock picks of the best hedge funds. Our quarterly newsletter's strategy selects 14 small-cap and large-cap stocks every quarter and has returned 373.4% since May 2014, beating its benchmark by 218 percentage points (see more details here).

An insurance executive conferring with clients in a modern office, discussing policies.

Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC)

Number of Hedge Fund Holders In Q4 2024: 41

Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC) is a Fortune 200 holding company that operates in the insurance and investment management sectors.

The stock is up significantly so far in 2025 due to a solid Q4 2024 report. Lincoln reported fourth-quarter net income of $1.7 billion ($9.63 per diluted share), driven by a $1.2 billion pre-tax gain from market risk benefits due to rising interest rates and a $587 million gain from changes in the fair value of derivatives related to its Fortitude Re reinsurance transaction.

Moreover, adjusted operating income was $332 million and beat consensus estimates. Group Protection and Annuities segments performed exceptionally well, with record sales and earnings growth. Annuities saw a 14% increase in operating income and the highest sales since 2019.

Risk-based capital ratio exceeded 430%, so the financial health looks quite strong as well. Plus, Lincoln declared high-yield dividends on its preferred stock: a semi-annual dividend of $1,156.25 per share for Series C (9.25% yield) and a quarterly dividend of $562.50 per share for Series D (9.00% yield).

The consensus price target of $37.1 implies 1.19% downside.

Lincoln National Corporation (NYSE:LNC) is up 20.14% year-to-date.

Overall LNC ranks 6th on our list of the insurance stocks that are skyrocketing so far in 2025. While we acknowledge the potential of LNC as an investment, our conviction lies in the belief that some AI stocks hold greater promise for delivering higher returns and doing so within a shorter time frame. If you are looking for an AI stock that is more promising than LNC but that trades at less than 5 times its earnings, check out our report about the cheapest AI stock.

 

READ NEXT: 20 Best AI Stock To Buy Now and Complete List of 59 AI Companies Under $2 Billion in Market Cap

 

Disclosure: None. This article is originally published at Insider Monkey.