Covered, steadily growing insurer income. A 1.75% yield on a 15.5% trailing payout is comfortably covered: $0.60 a quarter, raised in October 2025 from $0.52, continuing 13 years of increases. Business insurance is the earnings engine, and the payout leaves most earnings retained.
Key risk: Commercial property-casualty pricing cycles and catastrophe losses — a soft pricing market or a heavy storm season can compress the business-insurance earnings that fund the dividend.
Changes if: The trailing payout climbs past 30%, or the raise streak breaks. The low payout is the cushion; losing it changes the grade.
- ✓Payout-coverage check: 15.5% of trailing earnings — $2.40 a year against earnings that cover it more than six times over. Comfortably covered.
- ✓Yield check: 1.75% indicated — $0.60/qtr × 4 at the $136.76 close on Oct. 23, 2026. Real, earned yield; the quarterly rate was paid Oct. 2, 2026.
- ✓Dividend growth check: 13 consecutive years of increases; the latest raise, declared Oct. 27, 2025, lifted the quarterly dividend from $0.52 to $0.60.
What this grade doesn't say: It screens the dividend only — covered, real, compounding. It says nothing about valuation or price: a well-covered payer can still be overpriced, and its price can still fall.