Financial Comparison: Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD.A) versus M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft (OTCMKTS:MURGY)

Crawford & Company (NYSE:CRD.A) and M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft (OTCMKTS:MURGY) are both finance companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their valuation, earnings, profitability, analyst recommendations, risk, institutional ownership and dividends.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings and price targets for Crawford & Company and M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft, as provided by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
Crawford & Company	0	0	1	0	3.00
M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft	0	2	1	0	2.33

Crawford & Company currently has a consensus price target of $14.00, suggesting a potential upside of 5.74%. Given Crawford & Company’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, equities analysts plainly believe Crawford & Company is more favorable than M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft.

Volatility and Risk

Crawford & Company has a beta of 0.83, meaning that its share price is 17% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft has a beta of 0.38, meaning that its share price is 62% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

22.5% of Crawford & Company shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 0.2% of M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft shares are held by institutional investors. 54.3% of Crawford & Company shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.

Profitability

This table compares Crawford & Company and M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
Crawford & Company	1.81%	28.15%	6.51%
M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft	11.49%	21.19%	2.53%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares Crawford & Company and M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft”s top-line revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
Crawford & Company	$1.30 billion	0.49	$19.63 million	$0.47	28.17
M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft	$68.33 billion	1.11	$6.92 billion	$2.51	4.87

M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft has higher revenue and earnings than Crawford & Company. M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Crawford & Company, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Dividends

Crawford & Company pays an annual dividend of $0.32 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.4%. M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft pays an annual dividend of $0.34 per share and has a dividend yield of 2.8%. Crawford & Company pays out 68.1% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft pays out 13.5% of its earnings in the form of a dividend. Both companies have healthy payout ratios and should be able to cover their dividend payments with earnings for the next several years. M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft is clearly the better dividend stock, given its higher yield and lower payout ratio.

Summary

Crawford & Company beats M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft on 8 of the 15 factors compared between the two stocks.

About Crawford & Company

Crawford & Company provides claims management and outsourcing solutions to the risk management and insurance industry, and self-insured entities. The company's Crawford Claims Solutions segment offers claims management services related to property, casualty, and catastrophe losses caused by physical damage to commercial and residential real properties, and personal properties, as well as marine losses. It also offers services in the areas of field investigation, catastrophe, evaluation, and resolution of property and casualty insurance claims; and various on-demand inspection, verification, and other task specific field services for businesses and consumers through a mobile platform. Its Crawford TPA Solutions segment provides claims and risk management services; desktop claim adjusting and claims evaluation services; initial loss reporting services for claimants; loss mitigation services, such as medical bill review and case management, and vocational rehabilitation services; and risk management information services, as well as administers trust funds established to pay claims. It offers services for workers' compensation, auto and liability, disability absence and medical management, and accident and health markets. The company's Crawford Specialty Solutions segment offers claims management services related to large and complex losses in various industries, such as commercial property, aviation, forensic accounting, marine and transportation, retail, building and construction, cyber, and energy. It also provides a customer-centric solution for various loss types comprising high-frequency and low-complexity claims, and large complex repairs; and outsourced contractor management services to personal and commercial insurance carriers, and consumer markets. The company operates in the United States, the United Kingdom and the rest of Europe, Canada, Australia, and internationally. Crawford & Company was founded in 1941 and is based in Peachtree Corners, Georgia.

About M?nchener R?ckversicherungs-Gesellschaft

Münchener Rückversicherungs-Gesellschaft Aktiengesellschaft in München engages in the insurance and reinsurance businesses worldwide. It also offers life and health reinsurance solutions, such as digital underwriting and advanced analytics solutions, health insurance management system, financial market risks, financing, portfolio risk management, digitalized investment-linked solution, MIRA digital suite, MIRA POS, MIRApply insured and physician, claims risk adjustment, CLARA plus, data analytics, underwriting and claims, medical research, capital management, and health market. The company also provides property and casualty reinsurance solutions, including agricultural risk, data analytics, infrastructure risk profiler, property insurance, retroactive reinsurance, insurance linked securities, location risk, risk transfer, and cyber, NatCatSERVICE for natural catastrophe loss database, REALYTIX ZERO, IMPROVEX, and cert2go, as well as consulting services for reinsurance, business advisory, portfolio performance and management, claims management, commercial motor, telematics, and electric vehicles. In addition, the company provides solutions for industry clients, such as IoT cover, earnings quality insurance protection, captive insurance and risk transfer, liability, weather risks, space and satellite insurance, solar and biomass insurance, wind insurance, digital asset, mining risks cover, construction projects covers and services, aviation insurance, power and utilities, industrial cyber insurance, risk suite, location risk intelligence, digital risks, PV warranty insurance, parametric, Insure AI, e-mobility, circular economy, liquidation damage cover, and natural catastrophes solutions. Further, it offers life, property-casualty, health, legal protection, and travel insurance products under the ERGO brand name; and insurance solutions for agriculture, captive, epidemic, cyber, and renewable energy. The company was founded in 1880 and is based in Munich, Germany.