Every now and then I run a screen that gives me an estimate of “float” and tells me which companies are available at a 25% discount to book+float and see if anything interesting shows up… here’s the result of that screen as of yesterday:

Does that mean anything?  Not necessarily, but it can provide a good starting point for exploring — this doesn’t say anything about what is probably the most important criteria when selecting an insurance company, which is consistent underwriting profitability, something which can’t usually be found in a typical financial database and isn’t always directly and consistently reported by the companies themselves, so that has to be researched company-by-company… and this kind of screen will almost never include higher-growth insurance stocks, because those are essentially never available at a discount to book+float at all (like Progressive or Kinsale, for example — Kinsale is valued right now at about 3X “book + float”… but while some solid companies above have grown their book value almost 10% per year in that list above, like Markel, Kinsale has grown its book value by 30%/year over the past five years).

Could there be some other higher-growth insurance names that Porter might like, in the vein of Kinsale, which aren’t “discounted” right now using that criteria he used to talk about for more mature insurance companies?  I suppose… there are some higher-growth insurance companies which are still available for something close to their “book+float” number, if not at a big discount, like Skyward Specialty Insurance (SKWD), which is an unusual combination of growth and a decent valuation and has grown its book value by 30% per year (though is tiny and has only been public for a couple years, so less history)…. and if you’re willing to pay a bit more of a premium for that kind of growth, then Trisura (TSU.TO, TRRSF) is interesting, too, albeit still also pretty tiny (roughly the same size as Skyward, and less consistent, but arguably at a richer valuation).  And I’m sure there are other little insurers which don’t come up in my scans that are worth a second look.  I’ve been meaning to pay more attention to Trisura, which caught my eye a couple years ago, and Skyward is new to me, so I’ll add those to the watchlist to remind myself to dig a little deeper.

But as to what else Porter is recommending right now?  I can’t say that I see anything obvious enough to be an answer… so we know he most recently recommended Kinsale and apparently still likes it, and I’m pretty sure he still holds Chubb (CB) and WR Berkley (WRB) in that Big Secret model portfolio, though I don’t know what “buy” prices he would recommend for any of those, and the other two will remain a mystery for now.  We’ll see if he drops any hints when he adds his sixth P&C insurance stock to the portfolio in the near future.

As for me?  Well, right now I own shares of Berkshire Hathaway (BRK-B), Markel (MKL), Chubb (CB), W.R. Berkley (WRB) and American Financial Group (AFG), in addition to Kinsale and some insurance agency/brokerage companies, about half of which are still in “buyable” range… and I’ll put Trisura and Skyward Specialty on the watchlist as “somewhat richly valued growth stocks” in the insurance world, to see if they might be worthy of joining the list in the future.

P.S.  I just noticed that Oppenheimer has published a list of its best ideas for stocks that would benefit from either a Republican or Democratic sweep of the Presidency and Congress — presumably because Oppenheimer believes that either party will implement its stated policy goals, which is probably awfully simplistic — but I thought I’d call your attention to that because some of the names we mentioned above area apparently on their list, according to SeekingAlpha (I haven’t seen Oppenheimer’s actual report):  Kinsale (KNSL) and Skyward (SKWD) are their “insurance regulation and tort reform” picks for a Democratic sweep, and Progressive (PGR) for a Republican sweep.  Dunno why, and the “why” is probably silly, but there you go.

Disclosure: Of the companies mentioned above, I own shares of American Financial Group, Berkshire Hathaway, Chubb, W.R. Berkley, Markel and Kinsale Capital. I will not trade in any covered stock for at least three days after publication, per Stock Gumshoe’s trading rules.