Corebridge Financial (CRBG)

Retirement solutions provider Corebridge Financial (NYSE:CRBG) reported Q3 CY2025 results topping the market’s revenue expectations, but sales were flat year on year at $4.19 billion. Its non-GAAP profit of $0.96 per share was 11.4% below analysts’ consensus estimates.

Company Overview

Spun off from insurance giant AIG in 2022 to focus on the growing retirement market, Corebridge Financial (NYSE:CRBG) provides retirement solutions, annuities, life insurance, and institutional risk management products in the United States.

Life insurance companies collect premiums from policyholders in exchange for providing a future death benefit or retirement income stream. Interest rates matter for the sector (and make it cyclical), with higher rates allowing insurers to reinvest their fixed-income portfolios at more attractive yields and vice versa. Additionally, favorable demographic shifts, such as an aging population, are driving strong demand for retirement products while AI and data analytics offer significant opportunities to improve underwriting accuracy and operational efficiency. Conversely, the industry faces headwinds from persistent competition from agile insurtechs that threaten traditional distribution models.

Corebridge Financial competes with major retirement and insurance providers including Prudential Financial (NYSE:PRU), Lincoln National (NYSE:LNC), Equitable Holdings (NYSE:EQH), and Brighthouse Financial (NASDAQ:BHF). In the institutional markets segment, it also faces competition from MetLife (NYSE:MET) and Principal Financial Group (NASDAQ:PFG).

In general, insurance companies earn revenue from three primary sources. The first is the core insurance business itself, often called underwriting and represented in the income statement as premiums earned. The second source is investment income from investing the “float” (premiums collected upfront not yet paid out as claims) in assets such as fixed-income assets and equities. The third is fees from various sources such as policy administration, annuities, or other value-added services. Unfortunately, Corebridge Financial’s 1.5% annualized revenue growth over the last five years was weak. This was below our standards and is a rough starting point for our analysis.

We at StockStory place the most emphasis on long-term growth, but within financials, a half-decade historical view may miss recent interest rate changes, market returns, and industry trends. Corebridge Financial’s performance shows it grew in the past but relinquished its gains over the last two years, as its revenue fell by 8.2% annually. Note: Quarters not shown were determined to be outliers, impacted by outsized investment gains/losses that are not indicative of the recurring fundamentals of the business.

This quarter, Corebridge Financial’s $4.19 billion of revenue was flat year on year but beat Wall Street’s estimates by 11.6%.

Net premiums earned made up 43.4% of the company’s total revenue during the last five years, meaning Corebridge Financial’s growth drivers strike a balance between insurance and non-insurance activities.

Markets consistently prioritize net premiums earned growth over investment and fee income, recognizing its superior quality as a core indicator of the company’s underwriting success and market penetration.

Insurers sell policies then use reinsurance (insurance for insurance companies) to protect themselves from large losses. Net premiums earned are therefore what's collected from selling policies less what’s paid to reinsurers as a risk mitigation tool.

Corebridge Financial’s net premiums earned has declined by 1.1% annually over the last four years, much worse than the broader insurance industry.

When analyzing Corebridge Financial’s net premiums earned over the last two years, we can see its woes have continued as income dropped by 19.1% annually. Since two-year net premiums earned underperformed total revenue over this period, it’s implied that insurance policies were a detractor of consolidated growth.

Corebridge Financial’s net premiums earned came in at $1.94 billion this quarter, up a hearty 43.9% year on year.

Revenue growth is one major determinant of business quality, and the efficiency of operations is another. For insurance companies, we look at pre-tax profit rather than the operating margin that defines sectors such as consumer, tech, and industrials.

Insurance companies are balance sheet businesses, where assets and liabilities define the economics. Interest income and expense should therefore be factored into the definition of profit but taxes - which are largely out of a company’s control - should not. This is pre-tax profit by definition.

Over the last four years, Corebridge Financial’s pre-tax profit margin has risen by 16.2 percentage points, going from 29.9% to 13.7%. Luckily, it seems the company has recently taken steps to address its expense base as its pre-tax profit margin expanded by 2.1 percentage points on a two-year basis.

In Q3, Corebridge Financial’s pre-tax profit margin was 22%. This result was 60 percentage points better than the same quarter last year.

Insurance companies are balance sheet businesses, collecting premiums upfront and paying out claims over time. The float – premiums collected but not yet paid out – are invested, creating an asset base supported by a liability structure. Book value captures this dynamic by measuring:

• Assets (investment portfolio, cash, reinsurance recoverables) - liabilities (claim reserves, debt, future policy benefits)

BVPS is essentially the residual value for shareholders.

We therefore consider BVPS very important to track for insurers and a metric that sheds light on business quality because it reflects long-term capital growth and is harder to manipulate than more commonly-used metrics like EPS.

Fortunately for investors, Corebridge Financial’s BVPS grew at an incredible 38.8% annual clip over the last two years.

The debt-to-equity ratio is a widely used measure to assess a company's balance sheet health. A higher ratio means that a business aggressively financed its growth with debt. This can result in higher earnings (if the borrowed funds are invested profitably) but also increases risk.

If debt levels are too high, there could be difficulties in meeting obligations, especially during economic downturns or periods of rising interest rates if the debt has variable-rate payments.

Corebridge Financial has no debt, so leverage is not an issue here.

Return on equity, or ROE, represents the ultimate measure of an insurer's effectiveness, quantifying how well it transforms shareholder investments into profits. Over the long term, insurance companies with robust ROE metrics typically deliver superior shareholder returns through a balanced approach to capital management.

Over the last five years, Corebridge Financial has averaged an ROE of 20.7%, exceptional for a company operating in a sector where the average shakes out around 12.5% and those putting up 20%+ are greatly admired. This is a bright spot for Corebridge Financial.

We were impressed by how significantly Corebridge Financial blew past analysts’ revenue expectations this quarter. On the other hand, its EPS missed. Overall, this was a mixed quarter. The stock remained flat at $30.75 immediately following the results.

Updated: December 4, 2025 at 11:17 PM EST

A common mistake we notice when investors are deciding whether to buy a stock or not is that they simply look at the latest earnings results. Business quality and valuation matter more, so we urge you to understand these dynamics as well.

Corebridge Financial isn’t a terrible business, but it doesn’t pass our bar. For starters, its revenue growth was weak over the last five years, and analysts expect its demand to deteriorate over the next 12 months. And while its BVPS growth was exceptional over the last two years, the downside is its declining pre-tax profit margin shows the business has become less efficient. On top of that, its net premiums earned growth was weak over the last four years.

Corebridge Financial’s P/B ratio based on the next 12 months is 1.1x. While this valuation is reasonable, we don’t really see a big opportunity at the moment. We're fairly confident there are better investments elsewhere.

Wall Street analysts have a consensus one-year price target of $38.83 on the company (compared to the current share price of $30.26).

Although the price target is bullish, readers should exercise caution because analysts tend to be overly optimistic. The firms they work for, often big banks, have relationships with companies that extend into fundraising, M&A advisory, and other rewarding business lines. As a result, they typically hesitate to say bad things for fear they will lose out. We at StockStory do not suffer from such conflicts of interest, so we’ll always tell it like it is.