Root is cheap and could be a better buy than Lemonade here, because it is proving it can grow and make money at the same time. It picked the difficult personal auto market and executed exceptionally, with underwriting improving quarter after quarter and capital-efficient scaling showing up as high ROIC. The market will likely reward that. The choice versus Lemonade, which is building a long-term insurance brand, remains nuanced and depends on what an investor wants. x.com 

Root is extremely cheap, with nearly all the downside priced in but barely any of the potential upside. Net of cash, its enterprise value is just $670M, or 0.47x premiums in force, and it has generated $61M of net income so far in 2026. x.com 

Root looks expensive at 16x next year's earnings when insurers usually get 12x. Fair value is about $29.78-37.90, or 12x next year's expected $2.82 EPS give or take 12%, so the stock trades about 22% above the top of that range. The view rests on reported earnings and estimates only, with no fundamental work. x.com 

Better underwriting at Root, AI data demand at Innodata, defense breadth at Applied Aerospace & Defense, scaled voice AI at SoundHound, more organ access via TransMedics, profitable insurance at Lemonade, autonomous defense at Ondas and successful medicines at AbCellera could drive outsized growth. These eight smaller companies have a realistic path to 5x+ over 5-10 years if they execute on those opportunities. x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com  x.com 

Root looks cheap at about 7x earnings while buying back shares, with proven fully loaded economics. Even after $25.3 million of sales and marketing and $32 million of partner acquisition costs, it earned $25 million of GAAP profit with a 92.1% combined ratio. Lemonade grows much faster and may have more upside if retention and cross-sell deliver, but its case rests on modeled lifetime value and its shareholders keep getting diluted. Root's premium volume is roughly flat to down. x.com  x.com  … Show more

Root is an interesting company with an ambitious CEO, but it belongs in the too-hard pile without any edge in judging insurance businesses, despite encouraging fundamentals noted by others. x.com 

Self-driving cars give Root and Lemonade no edge, because if accidents fall, everyone benefits and insurers charge less, so the whole auto insurance industry shrinks. On the surface the risk looks like self-driving's threat to Uber, but the mechanics are completely different, and insurance companies are not attractive to own in general. The view is offered tentatively, as a non-expert. x.com  x.com 

Pagaya, Upstart and Root are money-losing companies, not a rebound story. They pay no dividends, so their yield is zero, and any comparison with the 2021 SPAC-peak mania is not a long-term trend. This rebuts a post the author replies to, which argued these fintechs show steady quarter-over-quarter EPS growth on sustainable revenue, trade at 10-year lows with rising dividend yields, and could 2x or 3x. x.com