Verisk Analytics, Inc. (VRSK): what the price assumes

In the published model solve dated 2026-Q2, anchored at $191.77, Verisk Analytics, Inc. (VRSK) is priced for +4.8% growth. boothcheck publishes no house fair value, target price, or buy/sell rating; individual model outputs and user-controlled scenarios are analytical inputs, not Boothcheck targets. Narrative composed 2026-07-03.

Generated: 2026-08-30 · Source: https://boothcheck.com/report/VRSK

Headline

What The Price Assumes (Inversion)

The assumption today's price embeds, recovered by inverting the valuation.

The operating-margin figure is value-band context at year 12: derived from the framework's value band, a separate calculation — not part of the priced-in solve.

Solve inputs: computed at a 7.4% cost of capital with 4% terminal growth over a 5-year stage.

How unusual the bet is: within-range (limited comparison data)

Valuation X-Ray

The price is justified by relative-multiple; earnings-power land below the price.

How the valuation models price the stock relative to the market price. Price/FV above 1.0 means the market pays more than that lens defends (expensive); at or below 1.0 the lens can defend the price.

Families that justify the price: Relative Families that call it expensive: Earnings

The models below discount at their own flat-beta convention rates (cost of equity 9.3%, WACC 9.2%); the inversion above states its own rate.

Per-Model Detail (n=5)

Economic-Unit Decomposition (Sum Of The Parts)

Only one reportable economic unit is present in the current topology source. Consolidated operating lenses remain available, but there is no multi-unit decomposition.

No total common-equity value is stated. One or more material units lack a supported unit value. The displayed values are an indicative subtotal; consolidated debt and cash cannot be applied to a fraction of the company.

Solvency

Bullet Takeaways

• Verisk is the dominant data and analytics provider to the property-and-casualty insurance industry, supplying the proprietary datasets, pricing tools and claims systems that insurers build their workflows around. It runs at a 44% operating margin and an adjusted EBITDA margin near 56%, the economics of a near-monopoly data franchise.

• Q1 2026 was steady: revenue up about 4% to $783 million, organic constant-currency growth of 4.7%, subscription revenue up 7%, and EPS up about 5%. Management guides full-year revenue to $3.19 billion to $3.24 billion and is buying back stock aggressively, including a $1.5 billion accelerated repurchase.

• The valuation is undemanding for the quality, which is the point. At $173.83 (as of June 27, 2026) the price embeds only about 2% annual operating growth, and the stock has fallen sharply over the past year on a single fear: that AI commoditizes Verisk's data moat.

Bull Case

The right lens for Verisk is what makes insurance data analytics a uniquely defensible business, and Verisk sits at the center of it. The company is a licensed statistical agent for insurance regulators across all 50 states, and its 10-K describes gathering information on individual properties, vehicles and communities to help clients evaluate, segment and price insurance, with building and repair cost estimation data used widely by repair contractors across the US and Canada. That is not a vendor relationship; it is infrastructure. Insurers build their underwriting rules, rate filings and claims workflows around Verisk's data, and migrating away would mean re-tooling systems, re-training staff and re-filing regulatory documentation, a multi-year ordeal. The moat is reinforced by a network effect: the more carriers contribute data to the pooled databases, the more accurate and valuable the analytics become, which pulls in more carriers.

The economics prove the moat is real and intact. Verisk runs a 44% operating margin and a roughly 56% adjusted EBITDA margin, and its return on invested capital has run nearly 20 percentage points above its cost of capital, the unambiguous signature of durable competitive advantage. Q1 2026 showed the resilience: revenue up about 4% to $783 million, organic constant-currency growth of 4.7% across both underwriting and claims, subscription revenue up 7%, and the EBITDA margin expanding another 60 basis points. A business compounding recurring subscription revenue at high single digits while expanding already-elite margins is doing exactly what a monopoly data asset should.

The valuation is where the opportunity sits, because the price asks for almost nothing. At $173.83 the market pays about 20 times operating income, which implies operating growth of only about 2% a year for five years, a fraction of the mid-single-digit organic growth the company is delivering. The stock has fallen nearly in half over the past year on AI-commoditization fears, and the company is leaning into rather than away from that shift, launching a GenAI Commercial Underwriting Assistant and XactAI claims automation, and running a $1.5 billion accelerated buyback into the weakness. The Street remains constructive, with a buy consensus and an average target well above the current price. The bull case is a regulatory-locked, network-effect data monopoly trading at a price that embeds a near-stall in growth it is not experiencing.

Bear Case

The bear case is moat erosion, and the agent doing the eroding is artificial intelligence, which is precisely why the stock has been cut nearly in half over the past year. The fear is concrete: if generative AI and large language models let insurers analyze risk, spot patterns and generate pricing recommendations using their own data and off-the-shelf models, they may no longer need to pay Verisk's premium for proprietary datasets. The whole edifice of Verisk's pricing power rests on its data being scarce and hard to replicate. If AI makes adequate analytics cheap to build in-house, or if new entrants using cloud architectures offer good-enough alternatives at lower cost, the 44% margins and 56% EBITDA margins that justify the valuation are exactly what gets competed away first. This is not a fringe worry; it is the dominant question hanging over every proprietary-data business.

The financial profile adds leverage to that risk. Verisk carries net debt of about $4.5 billion, more than three times trailing operating income, and it just funded a large buyback partly with new senior notes and a $500 million term loan, raising interest costs into a period of rate uncertainty. Leverage is fine when the recurring revenue is unassailable; it is more dangerous when the durability of that revenue is the central debate. The company flagged higher interest costs as an explicit headwind, alongside weather-related softness in transactional revenue and the operational complexity of governing AI contracts, so the very technology that threatens the moat is also adding cost and complexity to the business today.

There is also a growth-ceiling question the premium multiple cannot ignore. Verisk's core P&C insurance market in the US is mature, and organic growth in the mid-single digits, even at elite margins, is not fast. The price implies only about 2% growth, which sounds like a low bar, but it is a bar set by a market that suspects the growth rate could fade rather than accelerate as AI pressures pricing and the addressable market saturates. If the AI threat proves real over a multi-year horizon, the de-rating already seen is not an overreaction but the early innings of a structural repricing, and a levered, slow-growing data business loses the premium that made it a compounder. The bull and bear here are arguing about the same fact, the durability of the data moat, and the bear simply does not trust that it survives the AI era intact.

Valuation

Verisk's valuation reads as a high-quality franchise priced for a near-stall. At $173.83 the market pays about 20 times company-wide operating income, which under a 7.3% cost of capital and 4% terminal growth solves to operating growth of only about 2.1% a year over five years. That is a strikingly low bar for a business delivering mid-single-digit organic growth with expanding margins, and it tells you the price is discounting a meaningful fade rather than a continuation of the trend.

The X-ray is thin here, with only the earnings-power and relative-multiple families populated, but it is informative: the earnings-power family lands at about twice the price, saying expensive on current earnings, while the relative-multiple family sits below the price, saying reasonable versus peers. The split is characteristic of a quality compounder, not cheap on a static earnings view, but reasonable against comparable data and analytics businesses. The reliability on the solve is reasonable.

The honest synthesis is that the entry price is attractive if the data moat holds and expensive if it does not. The implied 2% growth is well below what the company is currently producing, so unless the AI-commoditization thesis plays out, the price understates the business. The reason it is cheap is not a fundamental stumble, organic growth is positive, margins are expanding, the buyback is large, but a market fear about the long-term durability of proprietary insurance data. The analyst consensus, a buy with an average target roughly 30% above the current price, sides with durability. The conclusion is that this is a rare case where a dominant, regulatory-locked data monopoly trades at a price embedding almost no growth; the return depends not on operational improvement, which is already happening, but on the moat surviving the AI era that the market is worried it will not.

Catalysts

The recurring catalyst is organic subscription growth, which is the proof point on whether the moat is holding. Q1 2026 showed revenue up about 4% to $783 million, organic constant-currency growth of 4.7% across underwriting and claims, subscription revenue up 7%, and the adjusted EBITDA margin expanding to 55.9%. Management guides full-year revenue to $3.19 billion to $3.24 billion and adjusted EBITDA to $1.79 billion to $1.83 billion, so each quarter's subscription growth and margin trajectory is the key signal that demand for Verisk's data is intact.

The defining medium-term catalyst is the AI question, and it cuts both ways. The market fear is that AI commoditizes Verisk's data; the company's answer is to embed AI itself, having launched a GenAI Commercial Underwriting Assistant and XactAI claims automation. Adoption of these tools, and any sign that AI is either eroding or extending the moat, is the catalyst that will ultimately re-rate the stock in one direction or the other. Management also flagged AI contract-governance complexity as a near-term operational headwind to watch.

Capital allocation and rates round out the picture. Verisk initiated a $1.5 billion accelerated share repurchase plus open-market buybacks, partly debt-funded, so the pace of repurchase and the level of interest expense both matter against net debt of about $4.5 billion. Weather-related softness in transactional revenue is a swing factor on the top line. The analyst consensus is a buy with an average target well above the current price, so renewed confidence in the durability of the data moat is what would close that gap.

Peer Cohorts (Per Segment, With Filing Citations)

Insurance (single segment) (reported)

• FDS (FACTSET RESEARCH SYSTEMS INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …does not believe that the ultimate outcome of these unresolved matters against us, individually or in the aggregate, is likely to have a material adverse effect on our consolidated financial position, annual results of operations and cash flows. However, these matters are subject to inherent uncertainties and…
• FY2025 10-K: …0001013237 2025 FY FALSE P3Y P3Y http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#PrepaidExpenseAndOtherAssetsCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#PrepaidExpenseAndOtherAssetsCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#AccountsPayableAndAccruedLiabilitiesCurrent http://fasb.org/us-gaap/2025#AccountsPayableAndAccruedLiabilitiesCurrent…
• CLVT (CLARIVATE PLC)
• FY2025 10-K: …matters are generally in early stages, we can give no assurance as to the outcome of any pending litigation to which we are currently a party, and we are unable to determine the ultimate resolution of these matters or the effect they may have on us. We have and will continue to vigorously defend ourselves against…
• FY2025 10-K: …2028. These Notes were guaranteed on a joint and several basis by each of our indirect subsidiaries that was an obligor or guarantor under our credit facilities and were secured on a first-priority basis by 55 Table of Contents CLARIVATE PLC Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements the collateral owned or…
• VRSN (VERISIGN INC/CA)
• FY2025 10-K: …gross $ 1,537.8 $ 1,537.8 Accumulated goodwill impairment ( 1,485.3 ) ( 1,485.3 ) Total goodwill $ 52.5 $ 52.5 There was no impairment of goodwill or other long-lived assets recognized in any of the periods presented. Deposits to Acquire Intangible Assets The Company's Deposits to acquire intangible assets represents…
• FY2025 10-K: …the parties thereto. These representations and warranties have been made solely for the benefit of the other party or parties to such agreements and (1) may be intended not as statements of fact, but rather as a way of allocating the risk to one of the parties to such agreements if those statements prove to be…
• EVTC (EVERTEC, Inc.)
• FY2025 10-K: 2022-12-01 2022-12-01 0001559865 evtc:AdjustedSecuredOvernightFinancingRateSOFROvernightIndexSwapRateMember evtc:TermBDueOnOctoberThirtyTwoThousandThirtyMember us-gaap:SecuredOvernightFinancingRateSofrMember evtc:CreditAgreementOctober2023Member us-gaap:LineOfCreditMember 2023-10-30 2023-10-30 0001559865…
• FY2025 10-K: …us-gaap:SecuredOvernightFinancingRateSofrMember evtc:CreditAgreementOctober2023Member us-gaap:LineOfCreditMember 2023-10-30 0001559865 evtc:TermADueOnDecemberOneTwoThousandTwentySevenMember us-gaap:SecuredOvernightFinancingRateSofrMember evtc:CreditAgreementOctober2023Member evtc:VariableRateComponentOneMember…
• DOX (AMDOCS LIMITED)
• FY2025 20-F: …external sources, failures to comply with our service obligations or other potential problems within or outside of our control may arise during implementation or from the use of our products and services, and may result in financial or other damages to our customers, for which we may be held responsible. Although we…
• FY2025 20-F: …we are not fully insured against all risks. Notwithstanding the insurance coverage that we carry, the occurrence of an event that causes losses in excess of the limits specified in our policies, or losses arising from events not covered by insurance policies, could materially harm our financial condition and future…
• CSGS (CSG SYSTEMS INTERNATIONAL, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: 10.28G* (46) Ninth Amendment to the Consolidated CSG Master Subscriber Management System Agreement between CSG Systems, Inc. and Charter Communications Operating, LLC 10.28H* (47) Eighth Amendment to the Consolidated CSG Master Subscriber Management System Agreement between CSG Systems, Inc. and Charter Communications…
• FY2025 10-K: …System Agreement between CSG Systems, Inc. and Charter Communications Operating, LLC 76 10.26A* (9) Second Amendment to Consolidated CSG Master Subscriber Management System Agreement between CSG Systems, Inc. and Charter Communications Operating, LLC 10.26B* (9) Third Amendment to Consolidated CSG Master Subscriber…
• JKHY (JACK HENRY & ASSOCIATES, INC.)
• FY2025 10-K: …shares. Credit facilities On August 31, 2022, the Company entered into a five-year senior, unsecured amended and restated credit agreement. The credit agreement allows for borrowings of up to $600,000, which may be increased to $1,000,000 by the Company at any time until maturity. The credit agreement bears interest…
• FY2025 10-K: …1, 2024, the Plan was amended and restated, and allows substantially all associates the opportunity to directly purchase shares of the Company at 85 % of the lesser of the fair market value, as defined by the Plan, of the Company's stock on the first trading day or on the last trading day of a three-month offering…

Methodology Note

• Priced-in inversion: the valuation is inverted on the current price to recover the operating-income growth, duration, and steady-state margin the price embeds (ROE for financials, FFO growth for REITs).
• Valuation x-ray: the valuation models, grouped into four families (asset, earnings, relative, growth). Each model is expressed as a price/FV ratio (distance from price), not a point fair-value estimate. The spread across families is the disagreement.
• Economic-unit decomposition (SOTP): each disclosed business unit is assigned its native valuation basis before any multiple is applied. Operating units are valued on enterprise value; funded financial units are valued on their own common equity, because their borrowings fund earning assets rather than levering the parent. A company total is stated only once every material unit carries a supported value and the parent capital bridge reconciles.
• Solvency: net cash/debt, net-debt-to-NOPAT, interest coverage, and share-count CAGR from EDGAR financials (net debt / FFO and fixed-charge coverage for REITs; regulatory-capital framing for financials).
• Peer cohorts: per-segment comparables with deep-linkable SEC filing citations.

Fundamentals sourced from SEC EDGAR filings. Current price from Databento. The priced-in inversion and valuation x-ray are computed by the boothcheck engine; narrative composed by AI from the structured data.