RLI Corp (RLI) Rewards Shareholders With Special Dividend

The board of directors of RLI Corp. (NYSE:RLI) recently approved a special cash dividend of $2.00 per share for the fourth quarter of 2016. RLI Corp. has been paying special dividend since 2011 and the recent one marks the sixth straight special dividend announcement. The insurer paid a special dividend of $2.00 last year as well.

RLI Corp. estimates a payout of about $88 million owing to the special dividend. This is well supported by its strong capital position. The P&C insurer maintains a solid balance sheet with sufficient liquidity and strong cash flows. This in turn enables the company to deploy capital through share repurchases, dividend hikes and special dividends to boost shareholders’ value. Including the recently declared dividends, the company has returned more than $1.2 billion to shareholders over the last ten years.

Concurrently, the board of directors announced a regular quarterly cash dividend of 20 cents per share. Both these dividends will be paid on Dec 23, to shareholders on record as of Nov 30, 2016.

Apart from paying special dividends, the property and casualty (P&C) insurer is known for increasing dividends as evidenced by the continuous dividend hikes in the past 41 years. Moreover, the company’s regular quarterly dividend has grown at a six-year CAGR (2010–2016) of 7.44%. RLI Corp. remains focused on boosting and creating shareholders’ value, and is also optimistic about continuing to share more with investors through special dividends.

Currently RLI Corp. carries a Zacks Rank #4 (Sell).

Some better-ranked stocks from the same space are Mercury General Corporation (NYSE:MCY) , National Interstate Corporation (NASDAQ:NATL) and Arch Capital Group Ltd. (NASDAQ:ACGL) . Each of these stocks sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.

Mercury General is a P&C insurer engaged in writing personal automobile insurance in the U.S. The company delivered positive surprises in two of the last four quarters but with an average miss of 21.04.

National Interstate is a specialty P&C insurance company that operates primarily in the U.S. The company delivered positive surprises in two of the last four quarters with an average beat of 10.21%.

Arch Capital offers property, casualty, and mortgage insurance and reinsurance products worldwide. It delivered positive surprises in all of the last four quarter with an average beat of 9.27%.

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