Piper Sandler upgrades Assurant to Overweight as EPS seems sustainable

As previously reported, Piper Sandler analyst John Barnidge upgraded Assurant (AIZ) to Overweight from Neutral with a $223 price target The firm believes shares have unnecessarily gotten caught up in tariff-related market volatility and views the current valuation as too cheap to ignore, while it sees EPS as intact for a number of reasons. Auto warranty has gone through a period of meaningful pricing increases to address input costs, and the turn should become more pronounced in 2025 given the multi-year nature to the business’s contracts, Piper argues. Further, with 2/3 of the risk borne by the enterprise partner, input cost headwinds impact appears measured. The firm also says that top-line growth in Global Housing strikes it as intact, Global Housing underwriting guidance is rather conservative, and shares rarely trade at 10-turns forward EPS like now vs. 10-year average of 11.6-turns.