ProAssurance Earnings Preview

ProAssurance (NYSE: PRA) will try to beat its earnings estimates for the third consecutive quarter. The company will unveil its latest earnings on Wednesday, Nov. 2. Proassurance is an insurance holding company for wholly-owned specialty property and casualty insurance companies that provide professional liability insurance for providers of health-care services.

What analysts say:

• Buy, sell, or hold?: Analysts strongly back ProAssurance, with five of seven rating it a buy and the remainder rating it a hold. Analysts like ProAssurance better than competitor OneBeacon Insurance Group overall. While analysts still rate the stock a moderate buy, they are a little more optimistic about it compared to three months ago.
• Revenue forecasts: On average, analysts predict $174.4 million in revenue this quarter. That would represent a decline of 3.7% from the year-ago quarter.
• Wall Street earnings expectations: The average analyst estimate is earnings of $1.29 per share. Estimates range from $1.10 to $1.64.

What our community says:
CAPS All-Stars are solidly behind the stock with 96.4% awarding it an "outperform" rating. The community at large agrees with the All-Stars with 95.7% assigning it a rating of "outperform." Fools are bullish on ProAssurance, though the message boards have been quiet lately with only 19 posts in the past 30 days. Even with a robust four out of five stars, ProAssurance's CAPS rating falls a little short of the community's upbeat outlook.

Management:
ProAssurance's profit has risen year over year by an average of 18.7% over the past five quarters. Revenue has now gone up for three straight quarters.

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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