Which Is a Better Investment, Horace Mann Educators Corporation or Lincoln National Corporation Stock?

By Jenna Brashear
July 31, 2026
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Sifting through countless of stocks in the Insurance industry can be tedious, and sometimes two stocks are just too similar to judge which is the better investment. If you’re on the fence about investing in Horace Mann Educators Corporation or Lincoln National Corporation because you’re not sure how they measure up, it’s important to compare them on a few factors before making your decision.

Read on to learn how Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation compare based on key financial metrics to determine which better meets your investment needs.

About Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation

Horace Mann Educators Corporation, together with its subsidiaries, operates as an insurance holding company in the United States. It operates through three segments: Property & Casualty, Life & Retirement, and Supplemental & Group Benefits segments. The Property & Casualty segment offers insurance products, including private passenger auto insurance, residential home insurance, and personal umbrella insurance; standard auto coverage including liability, collision, and comprehensive; property coverage for homeowners and renters. The Life & Retirement segment sells tax-qualified fixed, fixed indexed, and variable annuities; the Horace Mann Retirement Advantage open architecture platform and other defined contribution plans; traditional term, whole life insurance products, and indexed universal life (IUL) products. This segment also offers Life by Design, a portfolio of individual whole life and individual term insurance products that address the financial planning needs of educators; Life Select, a combination product that mixes a base of either traditional whole life, 20-pay life, or life paid-up at age 65 with a variety of term riders; single premium whole life products; and cash value term. The Supplemental & Group Benefits segment offers employer-sponsored products, including accident, critical illness, limited-benefit fixed indemnity insurance, term life, and short-term and long-term disability, as well as worksite direct products, such as supplemental heart, cancer, disability, and accident coverages. The company offers individual protection and savings solutions, including auto insurance, property insurance, liability insurance, 403(b) retirement plans, mutual funds, life insurance, student loan solutions, credit monitoring, and financial wellness workshops. It distributes its products and services through agents, brokers, benefit specialists, direct and digital channels. The company was founded in 1945 and is headquartered in Springfield, Illinois.

Lincoln National Corporation, through its subsidiaries, operates multiple insurance and retirement businesses in the United States. It operates through four segments: Life Insurance, Annuities, Group Protection, and Retirement Plan Services. The Life Insurance segment provides life insurance products, including term insurance, universal life insurance (UL), indexed universal life insurance, variable universal life insurance (VUL), linked-benefit UL and VUL products, and critical illness and long-term care riders. Its Annuities segment offers variable, fixed, and registered index-linked annuities. The Group Protection segment offers group nonmedical insurance products consisting of short and long-term disability and administration services, statutory disability; paid family medical leave administration and absence management services; term life; life; supplemental health insurance; accident, critical illness, and hospital indemnity benefits and dental and vision products to the employer marketplace through various forms of employee-paid and employer-paid plans. Its Retirement Plan Services segment provides employers with retirement plan products and services primarily in the defined contribution retirement plan marketplace; individual and group variable annuities, group fixed annuities, and mutual fund-based programs; and various plan services, including plan recordkeeping, compliance testing, participant education, and trust and custodial services. It distributes its products through consultants, brokers, planners, agents, financial advisors, third-party administrators, financial institutions, and other intermediaries. Lincoln National Corporation was founded in 1905 and is headquartered in Radnor, Pennsylvania.

Latest Insurance and Horace Mann Educators Corporation, Lincoln National Corporation Stock News

As of July 31, 2026, Horace Mann Educators Corporation had a $2.1 billion market capitalization, compared to the Insurance median of $7.1 million. Horace Mann Educators Corporation’s stock is up 12.8% in 2026, in the previous five trading days and up 25.81% in the past year.

Currently, Horace Mann Educators Corporation’s price-earnings ratio is 13.1. Horace Mann Educators Corporation’s trailing 12-month revenue is $1.7 billion with a 9.6% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 3.1%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $4.530 per share for the current fiscal year. Horace Mann Educators Corporation currently has a 2.8% dividend yield.

As of July 31, 2026, Lincoln National Corporation had a $8.8 billion market cap, putting it in the 76th percentile of all stocks. Lincoln National Corporation’s stock is up 2.4% in 2026, up 10.3% in the previous five trading days and up 33.36% in the past year.

Currently, Lincoln National Corporation’s price-earnings ratio is 5.3. Lincoln National Corporation’s trailing 12-month revenue is $18.8 billion with a 12.2% net profit margin. Year-over-year quarterly sales growth most recently was 12.5%. Analysts expect adjusted earnings to reach $7.806 per share for the current fiscal year. Lincoln National Corporation currently has a 3.9% dividend yield.

How We Compare Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation Stock Grades

Stock evaluation requires access to huge amounts of data and the knowledge and time to sift through it all, make sense of financial ratios, read income statements and analyze recent stock movements. AAII created A+ Investor, a robust data suite that condenses data research in an actionable and customizable way suitable for investors of all knowledge levels, to help investors streamline and work through such data.

AAII’s proprietary stock grades come with A+ Investor. These offer intuitive A‐F grades for each of five key investing factors: value, growth, momentum, earnings estimate revisions and quality. Here, we’ll take a closer look at Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation’s stock grades to see how they measure up against one another.

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Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation Stock Value Grades

Company Ticker Value
Horace Mann Educators Corporation HMN A
Lincoln National Corporation LNC A

Successful stock investing involves buying low and selling high, so stock valuation is an important consideration for stock selection.

Buying stocks that are going to go up typically means buying stocks that are undervalued in the first place, although momentum investors may argue that point.

AAII’s A+ Investor Value Grade derives from a stock’s value score. The Value Score is the percentile rank of the average of the percentile ranks of the price-to-sales ratio, price-earnings ratio, enterprise-value-to-EBITDA (EV/EBITDA) ratio, shareholder yield, price-to-book-value ratio and price-to-free-cash-flow ratio. The score is variable, meaning it can consider all six ratios or, should any of the six ratios not be valid, the remaining ratios that are valid. To be assigned a Value Score, stocks must have a valid (non-null) ratio and corresponding ranking for at least two of the six valuation ratios.

Stocks with a Value Score from 81 to 100 are considered deep value, those with a score between 61 and 80 are a good value and so on.

Horace Mann Educators Corporation has a Value Score of 87, which is Deep Value. Lincoln National Corporation has a Value Score of 91, which is Deep Value.

The Value Stock Winner: It’s a Tie!

Looking at the Value Grade breakdown above, both Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation have a Value Grade of A. For investors who focus solely on a company’s valuation, you will need to conduct further research into both of these companies’ other metrics to see if they could be good additions to your portfolio. It’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation Growth Grades

Company Ticker Growth
Horace Mann Educators Corporation HMN B
Lincoln National Corporation LNC F

The foundation of growth investing is seeking out stocks of companies exhibiting strong, consistent and prolonged growth that is expected to continue into the future.

In order to compute the growth score and assign it a letter grade, the percentile ranks for each of three components‐consistency of annual sales growth, five-year sales growth rankings adjusted for extreme levels, and consistency of positive annual cash from operations‐must be determined. These three rank figures are added together, and the sum is ranked against the entire stock universe to arrive at a company’s Growth Score to create an equal distribution of grades.

The companies in the bottom 20% of the stock universe receive Growth Grades of F, considered to be very weak, while those in the top 20% receive A grades, which are considered very strong.

Horace Mann Educators Corporation has a Growth Score of 78, which is Strong. Lincoln National Corporation has a Growth Score of 13, which is Very Weak.

The Growth Grade Winner: Horace Mann Educators Corporation

As you can clearly see from the Growth Grade breakdown above, Horace Mann Educators Corporation has a more attractive growth grade than Lincoln National Corporation. For investors who focus solely on how a company is growing relative to other companies in the same industry, Horace Mann Educators Corporation could be a good stock to add to their portfolio. However, it’s important for investors to analyze multiple factors based on a wide range of metrics before deciding whether to buy.

Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation’s Momentum Grades

Company Ticker Momentum
Horace Mann Educators Corporation HMN B
Lincoln National Corporation LNC B

Momentum grades help to uncover stocks experiencing anomalously high rates of return; research finds that stocks with high relative levels of momentum tend to outperform, whereas those with low levels of momentum tend to continue underperforming. Momentum is based on the price change of a stock over a specified period relative to all other stocks.

Typically, AAII looks at the weighted relative strength over the trailing four quarters. The weighted four-quarter relative strength rank is the relative price change for each of the past four quarters. The most recent quarterly price change is given a weight of 40% and each of the three previous quarters are given a weighting of 20%.

Horace Mann Educators Corporation has a Momentum Score of 63, which is Strong. Lincoln National Corporation has a Momentum Score of 68, which is Strong.

The Momentum Grade Winner: It’s a Tie!

Looking at the Momentum Grade breakdown above, both Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation have a grade of B. For those who focus solely on a company’s momentum, further research will need to be conducted into both companies to see if they fit your individual needs as an investor.

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Other Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation Grades

In addition to Growth, Value and Momentum, A+ Investor also provides grades for Estimate Revisions and Quality.

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Earnings estimate revisions scores take into account the magnitude of a company’s earnings surprise in its last two reported fiscal quarters. Often, surprises beget further surprises‐or at least continued sales growth (the exact opposite is generally true, too).

AAII’s A+ Investor Quality Grade comes from the ranking of key metrics. Specifically, the quality grade is the percentile rank of the composite of return on assets (ROA), return on invested capital (ROIC), gross profit relative to assets, buyback yield, change in total liabilities to assets, accruals, Z double prime bankruptcy risk (Z) score and F-Score.

These 2 key factors, when combined with the above, provide a holistic view into a particular stock. Further, by joining A+ Investor you can see whether Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation pass any of our 60+ stock screens that have outperformed the market since their creation.

So, Which Is the Better Investment, Horace Mann Educators Corporation or Lincoln National Corporation Stock?

Overall, Horace Mann Educators Corporation stock has a Value Score of 87, Growth Score of 78 and Momentum Score of 63.

Lincoln National Corporation stock has a Value Score of 91, Growth Score of 13 and Momentum Score of 68.

Comparing Horace Mann Educators Corporation and Lincoln National Corporation’s grades, scores and metrics can act as a solid basis to determine whether they may be a good investment or not. You’ll also want to look at your portfolio’s asset allocation as well as your risk tolerance and financial goals to see if either of these stocks would make a good fit for you. AAII can help you figure out which investments align with your individual needs and preferences.

Investors are encouraged to do their own due diligence and research. In this way, individuals can effectively become managers of their own assets‐without having to rely on others for financial independence. You can count on AAII for timeless articles on financial planning and stock-picking, unbiased research and actionable analysis.

A+ Investor adds to our qualitative teaching with a powerful data suite to help you whittle down investment choices to find stocks, exchange-traded funds (ETFs) or mutual funds that meet your needs.

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AAII Disclaimer

We make no representations or warranties that any investor will, or is likely to, achieve profits similar to those shown, because past, hypothetical or simulated performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. Before making an investment decision, you should consider your circumstances and whether the information on our content is applicable to your situation. This information was prepared in good faith, and we accept no liability for any errors or omissions. The full disclaimer can be read here.



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