# Lincoln National (LNC.US)

Canonical: https://gigainvestors.com/s/LNC

Analysis as of: 2026-10-16T07:29:53.654Z. Financial observations: FY2015–FY2025.

Listing currency: USD. Reporting currency: USD.

## Verdict

Not a wonderful business

Quality tests for Buy: not passed (profit record: pass; earnings resilience is evidence only). Published buy qualification: no.

Share price: $40.01 per share; close as of 2026-10-15.

## Checklist

### understandable: pass

- Financial history: 10 years

- Profitable years in the last ten: 9

- Required profitable years: 8

- Return on common equity variation (informational): 1.24×

Chart: Net income; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: $1.2B

- FY2017: $2.1B

- FY2018: $1.6B

- FY2019: $886M

- FY2020: $499M

- FY2021: $1.4B

- FY2022: $1.4B

- FY2023: -$834M

- FY2024: $3.2B

- FY2025: $1.1B

### moat: fail

- Common book per share

- Parent-total proxy for preferred equity

- median return on common equity below threshold

- Bank / P&C ROTE, median of available years: 9.1%

- Required median return: 10.0%

- Return uses tangible common equity: No

- Bank ROTE, second-lowest year: 0.1%

- Years with reported combined ratio: 0

Chart: Return on common equity; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: 8.2%

- FY2017: 12.0%

- FY2018: 11.4%

- FY2019: 4.5%

- FY2020: 0.1%

- FY2021: 7.1%

- FY2022: 33.0%

- FY2023: -12.1%

- FY2024: 38.5%

- FY2025: 10.0%

### economics: fail

- Common book per share

- Parent-total proxy for preferred equity

- book value per share plus dividends compounded below 7% annually

- Book value per share + reinvested dividends, annualized return: 3.6%

- Book return interval: 10 years

- Starting book value per share: $53.41

- Ending book value per share: $58.61

Chart: Annual book + dividend return; fiscal year observations.

- FY2016: 16.3%

- FY2017: 27.1%

- FY2018: -12.9%

- FY2019: 51.3%

- FY2020: 1798.0%

- FY2021: -94.2%

- FY2022: -75.6%

- FY2023: 76.9%

- FY2024: 22.7%

- FY2025: 26.3%

### management: fail

- Common book per share

- Parent-total proxy for preferred equity

- book per share gain below retained common earnings per share

- Diluted shares, 10-year annual growth: -3.1%

- Diluted shares, 5-year annual growth: -0.9%

- Share growth excluding flagged crisis recapitalisations: -3.1%

- Five-year share growth excluding flagged crisis recapitalisations: -0.9%

- Flagged crisis recapitalisations: 0

- Book created / earnings retained after dividends and buybacks: 0.22×

- Book value created per share: $5.20

- Earnings retained per share after dividends and buybacks: $23.67

Chart: Shares (first year = 100); fiscal year observations.

- FY2015: 100

- FY2016: 93

- FY2017: 89

- FY2018: 86

- FY2019: 79

- FY2020: 76

- FY2021: 74

- FY2022: 68

- FY2023: 67

- FY2024: 68

- FY2025: 73

### accounting: pass

- Financial accounting warning count: 0

- Known restatement years: 0

## Holders

- [Bill Miller](https://gigainvestors.com/LMM): tracked 13F investor; follow the investor page for holding quarter and amounts.

## Price story

Down 45% since Oct 2021 · "The quarterly results were hurt by a significant rise in total expenses." (finance.yahoo.com, May 2025) · net income -65.9%

Story as of 2026-10-16T09:59:05.085Z; price observation 2026-10-15.

- 2025-05-12: LNC Stock Down Despite Q1 Earnings Beat on Long-Term Disability Results ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lnc-stock-down-despite-q1-164700964.html))

- 2025-08-13: LNC Q2 Deep Dive: Margin Expansion and Product Diversification Drive Outperformance ([finance.yahoo.com](https://finance.yahoo.com/news/lnc-q2-deep-dive-margin-035314899.html))

### Net income · FY2025

net income -65.9%; source https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/59558/000005955826000016/lnc-20251231.htm; observed 2026-02-19.

- FY2016: $1.2B 

- FY2017: $2.1B 

- FY2018: $1.6B 

- FY2019: $886M 

- FY2020: $499M 

- FY2021: $1.4B 

- FY2022: $1.4B 

- FY2023: -$834M 

- FY2024: $3.2B 

- FY2025: $1.1B 

## Owner memo

Memo as of 2026-10-16T08:06:05.509Z.

### How it makes money

Operates in insurance life; annual sales are USD 18.2 billion.

- Source: https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/59558/000005955826000016/lnc-20251231.htm#000005955826000016 (filed 2026-02-19); FY2025: revenue 18212000000.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); LNC.US: 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.

### Why customers stay

It earns 9.1% on shareholders’ money, excluding intangible assets.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-19); 10-year return on tangible equity observations [[2016,0.08233181378643459],[2017,0.12002078281953585],[2018,0.11435540069686412],[2019,0.04499974605109452],[2020,0.0013889584759868843],[2021,0.07054983680642732],[2022,0.3299319727891156],[2023,-0.1209923110401857],[2024,0.3850526061192405],[2025,0.09957821382725106]]; median 0.09095501380684282. ROIC follows the displayed moat series; financial companies use return on tangible equity.

### Where the cash goes

Paid dividends in 10 of 10 years.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-19); Dividend observations: [[2016,238000000],[2017,262000000],[2018,289000000],[2019,303000000],[2020,311000000],[2021,319000000],[2022,310000000],[2023,387000000],[2024,398000000],[2025,416000000]]. Zero only counted when supported by a complete cash-flow statement.

### Are managers owners

Insiders own 0.3% of the company.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-10-16); LNC.US SharesStats.PercentInsiders = 0.34099999999999997 percentage points; cache date 2026-10-16.

### What the price says

The price is 0.4 times annual sales; cash earnings are negative.

- Source: https://eodhd.com/financial-apis/stock-etfs-fundamental-data-feeds/ (filed 2026-02-19); Closing price 40.01 USD; reporting-to-trading FX 1; FY2025 annual sales per share 97.88130560956247; price multiple 0.4087603833115528. FY2025 cash earnings/share -0.8975498592574639. Closing-price date 2026-10-15.

## Monthly share-price history (USD per share)

- 2016-10: $49.09 per share

- 2016-11: $64.10 per share

- 2016-12: $66.27 per share

- 2017-01: $67.51 per share

- 2017-02: $70.16 per share

- 2017-03: $65.45 per share

- 2017-04: $65.93 per share

- 2017-05: $64.98 per share

- 2017-06: $67.58 per share

- 2017-07: $73.06 per share

- 2017-08: $67.86 per share

- 2017-09: $73.48 per share

- 2017-10: $75.78 per share

- 2017-11: $76.55 per share

- 2017-12: $76.87 per share

- 2018-01: $82.80 per share

- 2018-02: $76.17 per share

- 2018-03: $73.06 per share

- 2018-04: $70.64 per share

- 2018-05: $66.29 per share

- 2018-06: $62.25 per share

- 2018-07: $68.10 per share

- 2018-08: $65.58 per share

- 2018-09: $67.66 per share

- 2018-10: $60.19 per share

- 2018-11: $62.97 per share

- 2018-12: $51.31 per share

- 2019-01: $58.49 per share

- 2019-02: $62.52 per share

- 2019-03: $58.70 per share

- 2019-04: $66.72 per share

- 2019-05: $59.45 per share

- 2019-06: $64.45 per share

- 2019-07: $65.34 per share

- 2019-08: $52.88 per share

- 2019-09: $60.32 per share

- 2019-10: $56.48 per share

- 2019-11: $59.05 per share

- 2019-12: $59.01 per share

- 2020-01: $54.48 per share

- 2020-02: $45.39 per share

- 2020-03: $26.32 per share

- 2020-04: $35.47 per share

- 2020-05: $37.93 per share

- 2020-06: $36.79 per share

- 2020-07: $37.27 per share

- 2020-08: $36.05 per share

- 2020-09: $31.33 per share

- 2020-10: $35.10 per share

- 2020-11: $47.22 per share

- 2020-12: $50.31 per share

- 2021-01: $45.49 per share

- 2021-02: $56.87 per share

- 2021-03: $62.27 per share

- 2021-04: $64.13 per share

- 2021-05: $69.79 per share

- 2021-06: $62.84 per share

- 2021-07: $61.62 per share

- 2021-08: $68.65 per share

- 2021-09: $68.75 per share

- 2021-10: $72.15 per share

- 2021-11: $66.33 per share

- 2021-12: $68.26 per share

- 2022-01: $69.98 per share

- 2022-02: $67.42 per share

- 2022-03: $65.36 per share

- 2022-04: $60.15 per share

- 2022-05: $57.93 per share

- 2022-06: $46.77 per share

- 2022-07: $51.34 per share

- 2022-08: $46.06 per share

- 2022-09: $43.91 per share

- 2022-10: $53.87 per share

- 2022-11: $38.94 per share

- 2022-12: $30.72 per share

- 2023-01: $35.43 per share

- 2023-02: $31.72 per share

- 2023-03: $22.47 per share

- 2023-04: $21.73 per share

- 2023-05: $20.92 per share

- 2023-06: $25.76 per share

- 2023-07: $28.04 per share

- 2023-08: $25.66 per share

- 2023-09: $24.69 per share

- 2023-10: $21.77 per share

- 2023-11: $23.78 per share

- 2023-12: $26.97 per share

- 2024-01: $27.45 per share

- 2024-02: $27.54 per share

- 2024-03: $31.93 per share

- 2024-04: $27.27 per share

- 2024-05: $32.99 per share

- 2024-06: $31.10 per share

- 2024-07: $33.30 per share

- 2024-08: $32.10 per share

- 2024-09: $31.51 per share

- 2024-10: $34.75 per share

- 2024-11: $35.54 per share

- 2024-12: $31.71 per share

- 2025-01: $35.16 per share

- 2025-02: $39.00 per share

- 2025-03: $35.91 per share

- 2025-04: $31.87 per share

- 2025-05: $33.14 per share

- 2025-06: $34.60 per share

- 2025-07: $38.11 per share

- 2025-08: $42.93 per share

- 2025-09: $40.33 per share

- 2025-10: $42.00 per share

- 2025-11: $41.14 per share

- 2025-12: $44.53 per share

- 2026-01: $41.61 per share

- 2026-02: $34.30 per share

- 2026-03: $35.50 per share

- 2026-04: $37.81 per share

- 2026-05: $35.29 per share

- 2026-06: $35.35 per share

- 2026-07: $45.61 per share

- 2026-08: $42.59 per share

- 2026-09: $40.26 per share

- 2026-10: $40.01 per share

## Annual estimated value (USD per share)

- FY2016: low $34.41 per share, central $43.02 per share, high $57.36 per share

- FY2017: low $105.99 per share, central $132.49 per share, high $176.65 per share

- FY2018: low $23.98 per share, central $29.97 per share, high $39.96 per share

- FY2019: low $151.75 per share, central $189.68 per share, high $252.91 per share

- FY2020: low $5,777.09 per share, central $7,221.36 per share, high $9,628.49 per share

- FY2021: low $296.60 per share, central $370.75 per share, high $494.33 per share

- FY2024: low $79.64 per share, central $99.55 per share, high $132.74 per share

Historical values use today's bond yield for every fiscal year

Historical values use today's FX rate into trading currency for every fiscal year

Historical values use current restated fundamentals and current commodity classification; they are not point-in-time estimates

## Sources

[Original 10-K filing](https://www.sec.gov/Archives/edgar/data/59558/000005955826000016/lnc-20251231.htm); period 2025-12-31, filed 2026-02-19.

Estimates depend on assumptions and are not guarantees or investment advice. Underlying data remains subject to its source licenses; public reading does not grant bulk redistribution rights.