Lemonade’s Book Value: Regulatory Risks, Growth Constraints, and Valuation

When investors bring up Lemonade’s decreasing book value, there are generally three concerns: regulatory risks, growth constraints, and valuation. I am going to address all three.

1. Regulatory risks

The risk-based capital ratio is the single formula that insurance regulators care most about. Risk-based capital is the regulator’s shorthand for how much capital an insurer is required to have on hand. The “risk-based” part of this title is important: it is risk-adjusted. All things being equal, a riskier insurance company requires more capital.

At yearend 2025, Lemonade’s US risk-based capital was $38.6 million. If an insurer’s statutory capital falls to 200% of its risk-based capital (so $77.2 million in Lemonade’s case), the insurer must submit an action plan on how it will fix its capital position. If the risk-based capital ratio continues to fall, regulators get more involved and will take control of the insurer if its ratio drops to 70%.

With that in mind, let’s see how Lemonade’s risk-based capital ratio has trended since IPO.

Continue reading “Lemonade’s Book Value: Regulatory Risks, Growth Constraints, and Valuation”

Lemonade: 2024 Review and 2025 Preview

In October 2023 I published a 12-page writeup titled “Lemonade: Short-Term Headwinds Will Soon be Tailwinds.” Fourteen months later, it looks like that title is turning out to be quite prescient. My last paragraph in that writeup was the following:

As inflation inevitably slows down and Lemonade’s rate increases get approved, their loss ratios should come down. This will also allow them to turn marketing back on and thus growth will accelerate. As their heavy investments to build out their three new lines of insurance are mostly complete, I expect [2024’s] growth to have high incremental margins and prove once more the operating leverage Lemonade has. Reaccelerating to 20-30%+ growth while loss ratios decrease and margins increase should result in a significant sentiment shift in Lemonade’s stock.

In summary, I predicted four things:

  1. Loss ratios would decrease
  2. Growth would accelerate
  3. Margins would increase
  4. Sentiment would improve

All four of those things happened in 2024, but more importantly, I expect 2025 to be the real inflection. I predict all of those same four things will happen again in 2025. Let’s walk through why.

Continue reading “Lemonade: 2024 Review and 2025 Preview”