When close to half the companies in the Insurance industry in the United States have price-to-sales ratios (or "P/S") below 1.1x, you may consider The Progressive Corporation (NYSE:PGR) as a stock to potentially avoid with its 1.9x P/S ratio. Nonetheless, we'd need to dig a little deeper to determine if there is a rational basis for the elevated P/S.

How Has Progressive Performed Recently?

With revenue growth that's superior to most other companies of late, Progressive has been doing relatively well. It seems that many are expecting the strong revenue performance to persist, which has raised the P/S. If not, then existing shareholders might be a little nervous about the viability of the share price.

Do Revenue Forecasts Match The High P/S Ratio?

Progressive's P/S ratio would be typical for a company that's expected to deliver solid growth, and importantly, perform better than the industry.

Taking a look back first, we see that the company grew revenue by an impressive 25% last year. Pleasingly, revenue has also lifted 45% in aggregate from three years ago, thanks to the last 12 months of growth. Therefore, it's fair to say the revenue growth recently has been superb for the company.

Turning to the outlook, the next year should generate growth of 16% as estimated by the eleven analysts watching the company. Meanwhile, the rest of the industry is forecast to only expand by 6.0%, which is noticeably less attractive.

With this information, we can see why Progressive is trading at such a high P/S compared to the industry. It seems most investors are expecting this strong future growth and are willing to pay more for the stock.

The Key Takeaway

Typically, we'd caution against reading too much into price-to-sales ratios when settling on investment decisions, though it can reveal plenty about what other market participants think about the company.

We've established that Progressive maintains its high P/S on the strength of its forecasted revenue growth being higher than the the rest of the Insurance industry, as expected. Right now shareholders are comfortable with the P/S as they are quite confident future revenues aren't under threat. Unless the analysts have really missed the mark, these strong revenue forecasts should keep the share price buoyant.

A lot of potential risks can sit within a company's balance sheet. You can assess many of the main risks through our free balance sheet analysis for Progressive with six simple checks.

If you're unsure about the strength of Progressive's business, why not explore our interactive list of stocks with solid business fundamentals for some other companies you may have missed.

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This article by Simply Wall St is general in nature. We provide commentary based on historical data and analyst forecasts only using an unbiased methodology and our articles are not intended to be financial advice. It does not constitute a recommendation to buy or sell any stock, and does not take account of your objectives, or your financial situation. We aim to bring you long-term focused analysis driven by fundamental data. Note that our analysis may not factor in the latest price-sensitive company announcements or qualitative material. Simply Wall St has no position in any stocks mentioned.