Brighthouse Financial trades at $65.41 per share and has stayed right on track with the overall market, gaining 11% over the last six months. At the same time, the S&P 500 has returned 15.6%.

Is there a buying opportunity in Brighthouse Financial, or does it present a risk to your portfolio? Dive into our full research report to see our analyst team’s opinion, it’s free for active Edge members.

Why Do We Think Brighthouse Financial Will Underperform?

We don't have much confidence in Brighthouse Financial. Here are three reasons why BHF doesn't excite us and a stock we'd rather own.

1. Declining Net Premiums Earned Reflect Weakness

Net premiums earned are net of what’s paid to reinsurers (insurance for insurance companies), which are used by insurers to protect themselves from large losses.

Brighthouse Financial’s net premiums earned has declined by 1.4% annually over the last five years, much worse than the broader insurance industry. This shows that policy underwriting underperformed its other business lines.

2. Growing BVPS Reflects Strong Asset Base

Book value per share (BVPS) serves as a key indicator of an insurer’s financial stability, reflecting a company’s ability to maintain adequate capital levels and meet its long-term obligations to policyholders.

Although Brighthouse Financial’s BVPS declined at a 11.1% annual clip over the last five years. the good news is that its growth inflected positive over the past two years as BVPS grew at an incredible 33.1% annual clip (from $62.89 to $111.33 per share).

The debt-to-equity ratio is a widely used measure to assess a company's balance sheet health. A higher ratio means that a business aggressively financed its growth with debt. This can result in higher earnings (if the borrowed funds are invested profitably) but also increases risk.

If debt levels are too high, there could be difficulties in meeting obligations, especially during economic downturns or periods of rising interest rates if the debt has variable-rate payments.

Brighthouse Financial currently has $7.50 billion of debt and $6.36 billion of shareholder's equity on its balance sheet, and over the past four quarters, has averaged a debt-to-equity ratio of 1.3×. We think this is dangerous - for an insurance business, anything above 1.0× raises red flags.

Final Judgment

Brighthouse Financial falls short of our quality standards. That said, the stock currently trades at 0.8× forward P/B (or $65.41 per share). While this valuation is optically cheap, the potential downside is huge given its shaky fundamentals. There are superior stocks to buy right now. We’d suggest looking at one of our top software and edge computing picks.

Stocks We Would Buy Instead of Brighthouse Financial

Your portfolio can’t afford to be based on yesterday’s story. The risk in a handful of heavily crowded stocks is rising daily.

The names generating the next wave of massive growth are right here in our Top 5 Growth Stocks for this month. This is a curated list of our High Quality stocks that have generated a market-beating return of 244% over the last five years (as of June 30, 2025).

Stocks that have made our list include now familiar names such as Nvidia (+1,326% between June 2020 and June 2025) as well as under-the-radar businesses like the once-micro-cap company Kadant (+351% five-year return). Find your next big winner with StockStory today.

StockStory is growing and hiring equity analyst and marketing roles. Are you a 0 to 1 builder passionate about the markets and AI? See the open roles here.