Horace Mann Educators Earnings Preview

While Horace Mann Educators (NYSE: HMN  ) missed estimates last quarter, investors hope that it will bounce back and outpace Wall Street expectations this quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Tuesday, Feb. 7. Horace Mann Educators is an insurance holding company that through its subsidiaries markets and underwrites personal lines of property and casualty insurance, retirement annuities, and life insurance.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Half of analysts think investors should stand pat on Horace Mann Educators while the remaining half rate the stock as a buy. Analysts like Horace Mann Educators better than competitor United Fire & Casualty overall. Zero out of two analysts rate United Fire & Casualty a buy compared to one of two for Horace Mann Educators. Horace Mann Educators' rating hasn't changed over the past three months.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $243.2 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a rise of 2.1% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $0.53 per share. Estimates range from $0.50 to $0.55.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly supporting the stock, with 87% awarding it an "outperform" rating. Most of the community backs the All-Stars, with 83.3% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are impressed with Horace Mann Educators, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 27 posts in the past 30 days. Horace Mann Educators has a bullish CAPS rating of four out of five stars that is about on par with the Fool community assessment.

Management:
Now let's look at how efficient management is at running the business. Traditionally, margins represent the efficiency with which companies capture portions of sales dollars. The following table shows net margins over the past four quarters. 

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Earnings estimates provided by Zacks.