Head-To-Head Contrast: NI (NASDAQ:NODK) and CNO Financial Group (NYSE:CNO)

CNO Financial Group (NYSE:CNO) and NI (NASDAQ:NODK) are both finance companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, dividends, institutional ownership, earnings, valuation, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent recommendations for CNO Financial Group and NI, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
CNO Financial Group	0	3	2	0	2.40
NI	0	1	0	0	2.00

CNO Financial Group presently has a consensus target price of $56.00, indicating a potential upside of 3.86%. Given CNO Financial Group’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities research analysts clearly believe CNO Financial Group is more favorable than NI.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares CNO Financial Group and NI”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
CNO Financial Group	$4.49 billion	1.11	$229.30 million	$2.91	18.53
NI	$267.39 million	1.14	-$10.41 million	$0.38	39.45

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

Institutional & Insider Ownership

95.4% of CNO Financial Group shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 21.9% of NI shares are owned by institutional investors. 3.4% of CNO Financial Group shares are owned by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.0% of NI shares are owned by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares CNO Financial Group and NI’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
CNO Financial Group	6.02%	18.76%	1.24%
NI	2.93%	3.18%	1.50%

Volatility and Risk

CNO Financial Group has a beta of 0.8, meaning that its share price is 20% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, NI has a beta of 0.31, meaning that its share price is 69% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

CNO Financial Group beats NI on 11 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About CNO Financial Group

CNO Financial Group, Inc., through its subsidiaries, develops, markets, and administers health insurance, annuity, individual life insurance, insurance products, and financial services for senior and middle-income markets in the United States. It offers Medicare supplement, supplemental health, and long-term care insurance policies; life insurance; and annuities, as well as Medicare advantage plans to individuals through phone, online, mail, and face-to-face. The company also focuses on sale of voluntary benefit life and health insurance products for businesses, associations, and other membership groups by interacting with customers at their place of employment. In addition, it provides fixed indexed annuities; fixed interest annuities, including fixed rate single and flexible premium deferred annuities; single premium immediate annuities; supplemental health products, such as specified disease, accident, and hospital indemnity products; and long-term care plans primarily to retirees and older self-employed individuals in the middle-income market. Further, the company offers universal life and other interest-sensitive life products; and traditional life policies that include whole life, graded benefit life, term life, and single premium whole life products, as well as graded benefit life insurance products. It markets its products under the Bankers Life, Washington National, and Colonial Penn brand names. The company was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Carmel, Indiana.

About NI

NI Holdings, Inc. underwrites property and casualty insurance products in the United States. Its products include private passenger auto, non-standard automobile, homeowners, farm owners, crop hail and multi-peril crop, and liability insurance policies. The company was founded in 1946 and is headquartered in Fargo, North Dakota. NI Holdings, Inc. operates as a subsidiary of Nodak Mutual Group, Inc.