First American Financial Corporation FAF reported third-quarter 2021 operating income per share of $2.15, which outpaced the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 29.5%. The bottom line jumped 64.1% year over year.

The results reflect record commercial and agency revenues as well as continued growth in purchase. These together offset the decline in refinance activity.

First American Financial Corporation Price, Consensus and EPS Surprise

First American Financial Corporation price-consensus-eps-surprise-chart | First American Financial Corporation Quote

Behind the Headlines

Operating revenues of $2.6 billion increased 33.5% year over year on the back of higher direct premiums and escrow fees, agent premiums, information, and other. Moreover, the top-line figure beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate by 34.8%.

Net investment income, however, decreased 3.4% to $50.7 million.

Total expense of about $2 billion increased 16.9% year over year due to higher personnel costs, premiums retained by agents, provision for policy losses and other claims, interest, premium taxes, and other operating expenses.

Segment Results

Title Insurance and Services: Total revenues increased 21% year over year to $2.1 billion. The upside came on the back of improved direct premiums and escrow fees, agent premiums, and higher information and other revenues.

Pretax margin contracted 240 basis points (bps) year over year to 16.4%.

Title open orders decreased 22.4% to 318,800, while Title closed orders decreased 13.3% year over year to 252,700.

The average revenue per direct title order increased to $2,884, primarily attributable to an increase in the average deal size in commercial business and the impact of strong home price appreciation on residential purchase transactions. The shift in the order mix from lower-premium residential refinance transactions to higher-premium commercial and purchase transactions also impacted the average revenue per order.

Specialty Insurance: Total revenues decreased 3% year over year to $132.2 million.

Pretax margin was (1.4%) compared with (52.9%) in the year-ago quarter due to a pretax loss of $10.5 million in the company’s property and casualty business.

Financial Update

First American exited the quarter with cash and cash equivalents of $1.9 billion, up 53.2% from 2020 end.

Notes and contracts payable were $1.6 billion, up 63.1% from 2020 end. The company raised $650 million in a public offering of 10-year senior notes at a coupon rate of 2.4%. The debt-to-capital ratio was 28.5 at quarter-end.

Cash flow from operations was $399 million, up 27% year over year.

Stockholders’ equity was $5.6 billion, up about 14% from 2020 end.

The company bought back shares worth $14.1 million in the reported quarter. It had $463 million remaining under its authorization as of Sep30, 2021.

Zacks Rank

First American currently has a Zacks Rank #2 (Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank (Strong Buy) stocks here.

Performance of Other Insurers

Among other insurance industry players, which have reported third-quarter earnings so far, the bottom line of RLI Corp. RLI and The Travelers Companies, Inc. TRV beat the Zacks Consensus Estimate while that of The Progressive Corporation PGR missed the same.

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