“I buy on the assumption that they could close the market the next day and not reopen it for five years.”
— Warren Buffett
Assurant Inc (NYSE: AIZ) delivered a strong five-year total return for investors who bought in mid-2021 and held through mid-2026. Using a starting investment of $10,000, with dividends reinvested, the position grew to $18,985.43 as of 07/01/2026. That result highlights the combined effect of share-price appreciation, regular dividend payments, and reinvestment over time.
Assurant is best known as a specialty insurer with significant exposure to housing and lifestyle-related protection products, including mobile device protection, vehicle service contracts, and lender-placed insurance. For a stock such as AIZ, long-term results are typically driven less by day-to-day market volatility and more by underwriting performance, fee-based earnings streams, disciplined capital allocation, and the company’s ability to return cash to shareholders through dividends and share repurchases.
AIZ Five-Year Return Summary
| Start date: | 07/02/2021 |
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| End date: | 07/01/2026 | ||||
| Start price/share: | $156.50 | ||||
| End price/share: | $274.14 | ||||
| Starting shares: | 63.90 | ||||
| Ending shares: | 69.24 | ||||
| Dividends reinvested/share: | $14.22 | ||||
| Total return: | 89.82% | ||||
| Average annual return: | 13.68% | ||||
| Starting investment: | $10,000.00 | ||||
| Ending investment: | $18,985.43 | ||||
The figures above show that a five-year holding period in Assurant produced an annualized return of 13.68%, turning $10,000 into $18,985.43 by 07/01/2026. On a total return basis, including reinvested dividends, that equates to 89.82%. [These numbers were computed with the Dividend Channel DRIP Returns Calculator.]
What Drove the Return?
For AIZ, the five-year result came from two sources:
- Capital appreciation: the share price rose from $156.50 to $274.14.
- Dividend income: the stock paid $14.22 per share over the period, with those cash distributions reinvested into additional shares.
The reinvestment effect is visible in the share count. An initial 63.90 shares grew to 69.24 shares by the end of the period. That increase mattered because the additional shares also participated in the subsequent price appreciation. This is a straightforward example of how compounding works in dividend-paying stocks: income buys more shares, and those shares can then generate both future dividends and additional market value.
How Dividend Reinvestment Changed the Outcome
Dividend reinvestment can make a meaningful difference over multi-year holding periods, particularly when the underlying company steadily raises or maintains its payout while the stock price trends higher over time. In this analysis, each dividend is assumed to have been reinvested at the closing price on the ex-dividend date. That methodology increased the ending share count and lifted the ending value above what price appreciation alone would have produced.
Over the past five years, Assurant paid a cumulative $14.22 per share in dividends. For investors evaluating total return rather than price return alone, that cash flow is a material part of the investment case.
Current Yield and Yield on Cost
Based on the most recent annualized dividend rate of $3.52 per share, AIZ has a current dividend yield of approximately 1.28% using the ending share price of $274.14. A related metric is yield on cost, which compares the current annualized dividend to the original purchase price.
- Current yield: 1.28%
- Yield on original cost basis: about 2.25% ($3.52 divided by $156.50)
Yield on cost is useful for illustrating how a growing dividend stream can improve the income generated by an original investment. It is not a valuation measure, but it does help show how the economics of holding a stock can improve over time if the dividend rises.
What This Five-Year AIZ Investment Shows
This Assurant investment outcome underscores several core points. First, total return matters more than price return in isolation. Second, dividend reinvestment can materially enhance long-term results even when the starting yield is moderate. Third, patient holding periods can produce outcomes that are obscured by short-term market fluctuations.
Whether AIZ can produce similar returns over the next five years will depend on a different set of starting conditions, including valuation, earnings growth, claims experience, capital returns, and the durability of its business mix. But the historical result here is clear: over the 2021 to 2026 period, a disciplined buy-and-hold approach in Assurant generated a strong compounded return.
Here’s one more investment quote before you go:
“In the short run, the market is a voting machine but in the long run, it is a weighing machine.” — Benjamin Graham
