Beazley plc (BZLYF)
OvervaluedFundamental
53
Price
$1308.50
Market Cap
$7.79B
Part 1 · What the company is worth
Overview
Beazley is a specialist insurer operating mainly through Lloyd's of London: it underwrites risks that standard insurers avoid or price poorly, such as cyberattacks, kidnap and ransom, and large or unusual property and marine exposures. Brokers bring it individual risks, Beazley's underwriters price and accept them, and the company collects premiums up front in exchange for a promise to pay claims that may not surface for years.
How it makes money
Revenue is insurance premium, earned gradually over the life of each policy rather than booked all at once when it is written, plus investment income on the reserves held to pay future claims. Profit depends on charging more in premiums than the claims and expenses eventually paid out — a gap the industry calls the combined ratio — so the same dollar of premium can be very profitable or a loss depending entirely on how claims develop years later.
Revenue by segment
A broad book of professional liability, executive risk and other specialty commercial lines outside the other four categories.
Insurance on physical property and related business interruption, including large and catastrophe-exposed commercial risks.
Cover against data breaches, ransomware and other digital attacks — one of the newer and fastest-changing lines Beazley underwrites.
Marine, aviation and political risk lines, grouped together as a single underwriting division.
Smaller commercial risks underwritten and distributed through digital, algorithm-driven channels rather than traditional broker placement.
Competitive moat
Patents and licences · NarrowUnderwriting specialty risks like cyber or kidnap and ransom well requires claims data and expertise built up over many years, which is hard for a new entrant to replicate quickly. The advantage is narrow rather than wide because capital, not just expertise, backs an insurer's ability to write business, and well-funded rivals can buy their way into the same specialty lines.
What drives demand
CyclicalInsurance pricing moves in multi-year cycles driven by how much capital the industry has available to write risk: after large losses, prices rise and Beazley can charge more for the same risk; after a run of profitable years, new capital enters, competition increases and rates soften, as the company itself reported happening across its book in 2025.
Key risks
- Catastrophe and cyber accumulation risk — The company identifies catastrophe risk — large events caused by nature such as hurricanes and earthquakes, or by people such as a coordinated cyberattack, pandemic or war — as a principal risk that can generate claims far larger than any single premium collected.
- Softening underwriting cycle — Rates on renewal business decreased by 3.6% on average across the portfolio in 2025, a softening market that, if it continues, would compress the margin Beazley earns on the same risks over time.
- Reserving and reserve adequacy — Beazley names reserving risk among its principal insurance risks: claims on specialty lines like cyber or professional liability can take years to emerge, so reserves set aside today may prove too low once the true cost of past policies becomes known.
The case for
Buyers argue that specialty underwriting expertise built over decades lets Beazley price risks that generalist insurers cannot, that a combined ratio in the low 80s shows real underwriting discipline rather than luck, and that cyber and other specialty lines still have room to grow as more of the economy needs that cover.
The case against
Sellers fear that softening rates on renewal business will keep compressing margins as more capital chases the same specialty risks, that a single large catastrophe or cyber event could produce losses far above what current reserves assume, and that reserves set years ago for slow-to-emerge claims may need to be strengthened later.
Written by the editors, published on August 18, 2026
Direct competitors
Who this company fights with for the same customers
Generated on September 18, 2026 with claude-haiku-4-5 — shared with all users
Markel's insurance arm competes head-on in US excess and surplus specialty liability and at Lloyd's, with overlapping professional liability, cyber and marine offerings.
Arch underwrites professional lines, cyber, property and marine through its London and Lloyd's operations and its US insurance segment, chasing the same broker-placed specialty business.
The closest London-listed peer: Hiscox underwrites the same Lloyd's specialty book — cyber, professional indemnity, D&O, property and marine — and competes for the same brokers and commercial clients in the UK and the US.
Chubb is the other leader of the global standalone cyber market alongside Beazley and bids for the same large corporate cyber, D&O and specialty liability programmes worldwide.
AXIS writes the same specialty lines — cyber, professional lines, marine and property — through both its Lloyd's syndicate and its US excess and surplus platform, targeting Beazley's core mid-market and corporate buyers.
Lancashire is the other London-listed Lloyd's specialty underwriter competing in property, energy, marine, aviation and political risk — the classes that make up Beazley's Property and MAP divisions.
Balance Sheet & Liquidity
Revenue
$5.56B
Trailing 12 months to the last reported quarter — estimated from per-share metrics
Net Income
$656M
Trailing 12 months to the last reported quarter — estimated from per-share metrics
Free Cash Flow
$-7M
Total Equity
$3.67B
Total Liabilities
$624M
Current Ratio
36.00
Interest Coverage
-
Debt/EBITDA
0.50
Earnings Per Share
Revenue & Net Income
Free Cash Flow
Income Breakdown
Historical statement
Margins over time
Debt over time
How heavy the debt is
Growth grid
Growth — Revenue
Fair Value Estimation
Fair Value
$338.68
Current Price
$1308.50
Margin of Safety
-286.4%
Fair Value Range
$220.14 - $457.22
Spread across the valuation methods used, not a statistically calibrated confidence interval.
Estimation Methods
Valuation Metrics
P/E Ratio
1190.74
ROE
14.2%
P/B Ratio
160.76
P/FCF
-
Gross Margin
29.4%
ROIC
14.9%
Profitability Radar
Value Creation (Economic Moat)
ROIC
14.9%
WACC
7.4%
ROIC − WACC
+7.5 pp
ROIC exceeds the cost of capital — the company is creating value for shareholders.
Fundamental Analysis Criteria
Passed (10)
- Price CAGR 12.92%
- ROIC 14.9%
- Debt/Equity ratio
- Operating Margin 14.2%
- Current Ratio
- Debt/EBITDA
- ROE 13.9%
- Revenue Growth 5Y 15.5%
- Analyst Consensus 53% Buy
- Earnings Quality (OCF/NI) 0.88
Failed (8)
- Gross Margin 29.4%
- P/B Ratio 160.76
- Positive Free Cash Flow
- Price below Graham Number
- DCF valuation (Unknown)
- Earnings Surprise avg -13.0%
- Net Margin Trend 15.0% vs 18.3%
- Piotroski F-Score 1/9
Unavailable (9)
- EPS data insufficient
- P/FCF NaN
- Dividend Payout NaN%
- CapEx intensity
- Interest Coverage
- Return on Tangible Assets
- Low reliance on intangibles
- PEG Ratio (need PE > 0 and growth > 0)
- Share Dilution (missing shares data)
Piotroski F-Score
Serious financial concerns
Earnings Quality
Moderate: some gap between profits and cash
Share Dilution
Buying back shares. Shareholder friendly
Institutional Holdings
No institutional filings reported for this company.
Governance
Executive Team
| Name | Title | Age |
|---|---|---|
| Mr. Adrian Peter Cox | CEO & Executive Director | 54 |
| Ms. Barbara Plucnar Jensen | Group CFO & Executive Director | 54 |
| Mr. Troy Dehmann | Chief Operating Officer | - |
| Mr. Stuart Simpson | Chief Investment Officer | - |
| Mark Moerdyk | Chief Technology Officer | - |
| Ms. Sarah Booth | Head of Investor Relations & Chair of the Diversity Steering Group | - |
| Ms. Georgina Peters-Venzano | Chief Marketing Officer | - |
| Ms. Elizabeth Mary Jane Ashford | Chief People Officer & Head of ESG | 58 |
| Mr. Jeremiah Edward Sullivan Jr. | Head & Chair of US Management Committee | - |
| Mr. Patrick Hartigan | Group Head of Treaty | - |
Audit Risk
1
Board Risk
2
Compensation Risk
10
Shareholder Rights Risk
1
Part 2 · The price and when to enter
This part won't tell you whether the company is worth owning: it helps you choose when to buy it, once the fundamentals have convinced you. Inside: technical analysis, potential, historical drawdowns, gamma exposure.
Latest News
Recent headlines for BZLYF, sourced from Markets Gazette.