Voya vs. peers
To evaluate Voya Financial fairly, it's essential to compare its performance in each key business segment directly to its main peers. The picture across the industry is mixed: while stop-loss insurance has become a significant challenge for nearly everyone, Voya's struggles are unique because its valuation is being heavily penalized for a specific strategic error that its core retirement peers have largely avoided.
🏦 Retirement & Recordkeeping: A High-Caliber Player in a Consolidating Market
In its primary business of providing 401(k) plans and other retirement services, Voya is a top-tier competitor, but it faces giants with greater scale.
| Company | Scale (Recordkeeping Assets) | Recent Financial Momentum | Strategic Position |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voya Financial | A leading provider, managing ~$1.1 trillion in client assets for nearly 10 million accounts. | Mixed. Generated $28.2B in record net inflows in 2025, and segment pre-tax earnings were a healthy $959M. However, total revenue grew only 1.7% to $8.19B, and net income fell 2% to $613M. | A core and profitable player, seen as one of the firms with the scale to survive ongoing industry consolidation-. |
| Principal Financial Group (PFG) | AUM of $781B, part of a larger AUA of $1.81 trillion. | Strong. Revenue of $15.6B and net income of $1.19B in 2025. ROE of ~15.7% and adjusted EPS grew 12%, exceeding its own targets. | A diversified powerhouse with strong performance across retirement, insurance, and asset management. |
| Empower Retirement | The undisputed recordkeeping king, with AUA of $1.9 trillion across 88,000 plans. | Robust. Generated $23B in net plan flows in 2025 and expects continued growth. Its growth has been fueled by aggressive acquisitions, making it a dominant force in the 401(k) market. | The "gorilla" in the room, with unmatched scale to invest in technology and pricing. |
| Fidelity Investments | A financial services titan with a massive $7.1 trillion in managed assets and $17.5 trillion in client AUA. | Exceptional. Client assets under administration surged ~$10 trillion from 2021 to 2025. Its retirement plan business is consistently ranked top for its digital tools and plan sponsor services-. | A category-defining leader that sets the benchmark for service, technology, and performance in the industry. |
How Voya Stacks Up: Voya is a formidable competitor and its record net inflows prove the business remains strong. However, its recent earnings growth is lagging behind a peer like Principal, which is delivering double-digit EPS growth. Furthermore, while Voya is a leading recordkeeper, it doesn't have the sheer, overwhelming scale of industry behemoths like Empower and Fidelity, which can offer pricing and technology that smaller competitors struggle to match.
🏥 Stop-Loss Insurance: A Universal Pain Point for the Entire Industry
The recent struggles in Voya's stop-loss insurance business are not an isolated problem. The entire industry is facing a crisis of rising claims, and nearly every major carrier is raising prices aggressively in response.
| Company/Indicator | Loss Ratio Reality | Market Response |
|---|---|---|
| Voya Financial | Significant losses, including a $37M reserve in Q4 2025. The unit posted an operating loss of ~$10M for the quarter. | Announced it would raise stop-loss premiums at twice the rate of 2024-. |
| Cigna Group | Cigna's CFO reported its full-year loss ratio was between 90% and 95%, which was 4 to 7 percentage points higher than expected-. | Will need significant price hikes to restore profitability; expects to get margins to desired levels by the end of 2027-. |
| Industry Average Trend | Deteriorated from 81.6% in 2019 to 86.0% in 2024-. 2025 claims are widely reported to have "well exceeded target loss ratios"-. | Aggressive price increases are the norm. Industry renewals in January 2026 saw an average increase of 23%-. |
How Voya Stacks Up: The data shows Voya is suffering from the same adverse medical trends as everyone else, but it's in a particularly difficult spot. Unlike larger, more diversified rivals, Voya lacks the scale in health underwriting to absorb shocks or spread risk effectively. This makes its stop-loss problems more acute and has drawn intense activist scrutiny, while the market expects a diversified competitor like Cigna to eventually manage its way through a cycle.
📊 Voya vs. The Peers: A Tale of Two Stories
When you combine the data, a clear pattern emerges that explains why the market is treating Voya so harshly.
| Company | Core Retirement Performance | Stop-Loss / Benefits Performance | Market Sentiment & Valuation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Voya | StrongRecord net inflows, $959M in earnings. | Weak / Loss-MakingFacing acute issues, drawing activist pressure. | Punished / DiscountedTrades at a forward P/E of <8x, a ~30% discount to peers. |
| Principal Financial | Strong12% EPS growth, 15.7% ROE. | ManageableDiversified insurance book; not a primary focus of negative attention. | Rewarded / PremiumStrong growth and clear outlook rewarded by the market. |
| Cigna Group | DiversifiedLess direct exposure. 401(k) is not their primary business. | WeakOpenly disclosed industry-wide struggles. | ResilientBenefits from scale; stock less punished, focusing on core PBM strength. |
💡 The Bottom Line
Voya's problem isn't just that one of its segments is struggling—it's that it has two opposite stories happening at once. Investors give credit for the success in its core retirement business but have attached a persistent and heavy discount to the stock because of the twin failures of the BenefitFocus acquisition and the underperformance of its stop-loss segment.
By contrast, a peer like Principal is rewarded for a well-executed, diversified strategy with strong growth across the board. Even a pure-play like Cigna, which openly acknowledges its stop-loss problems, benefits from having massive scale in health underwriting that convinces the market it can eventually fix the issue.
If you're interested, I can also look into the operational metrics for these peers—things like participant growth, average account balance growth, or stop-loss market share. Would that be helpful?