It is hard to get excited after looking at Aflac’s (NYSE:AFL) recent performance, when its stock has declined 3.0% over the past week. However, the company’s fundamentals look pretty decent, and long-term financials are usually aligned with future market price movements. Specifically, we decided to study Aflac’s ROE in this article.

ROE or return on equity is a useful tool to assess how effectively a company can generate returns on the investment it received from its shareholders. In short, ROE shows the profit each dollar generates with respect to its shareholder investments.

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ROE can be calculated by using the formula:

Return on Equity = Net Profit (from continuing operations) ÷ Shareholders’ Equity

So, based on the above formula, the ROE for Aflac is:

15% = US$4.2b ÷ US$29b (Based on the trailing twelve months to September 2025).

The ‘return’ refers to a company’s earnings over the last year. One way to conceptualize this is that for each $1 of shareholders’ capital it has, the company made $0.15 in profit.

View our latest analysis for Aflac

We have already established that ROE serves as an efficient profit-generating gauge for a company’s future earnings. Depending on how much of these profits the company reinvests or “retains”, and how effectively it does so, we are then able to assess a company’s earnings growth potential. Generally speaking, other things being equal, firms with a high return on equity and profit retention, have a higher growth rate than firms that don’t share these attributes.

At first glance, Aflac seems to have a decent ROE. Even when compared to the industry average of 13% the company’s ROE looks quite decent. For this reason, Aflac’s five year net income decline of 3.9% raises the question as to why the decent ROE didn’t translate into growth. Based on this, we feel that there might be other reasons which haven’t been discussed so far in this article that could be hampering the company’s growth. These include low earnings retention or poor allocation of capital.

So, as a next step, we compared Aflac’s performance against the industry and were disappointed to discover that while the company has been shrinking its earnings, the industry has been growing its earnings at a rate of 11% over the last few years.

past-earnings-growth NYSE:AFL Past Earnings Growth January 13th 2026

Earnings growth is an important metric to consider when valuing a stock. It’s important for an investor to know whether the market has priced in the company’s expected earnings growth (or decline). This then helps them determine if the stock is placed for a bright or bleak future. Has the market priced in the future outlook for AFL? You can find out in our latest intrinsic value infographic research report.

Aflac’s low three-year median payout ratio of 22% (or a retention ratio of 78%) over the last three years should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings to fuel its growth but the company’s earnings have actually shrunk. The low payout should mean that the company is retaining most of its earnings and consequently, should see some growth. So there might be other factors at play here which could potentially be hampering growth. For instance, the business has faced some headwinds.

Additionally, Aflac has paid dividends over a period of at least ten years, which means that the company’s management is determined to pay dividends even if it means little to no earnings growth. Our latest analyst data shows that the future payout ratio of the company is expected to rise to 36% over the next three years. Regardless, the ROE is not expected to change much for the company despite the higher expected payout ratio.

In total, it does look like Aflac has some positive aspects to its business. Yet, the low earnings growth is a bit concerning, especially given that the company has a high rate of return and is reinvesting ma huge portion of its profits. By the looks of it, there could be some other factors, not necessarily in control of the business, that’s preventing growth. With that said, we studied the latest analyst forecasts and found that while the company has shrunk its earnings in the past, analysts expect its earnings to grow in the future. To know more about the latest analysts predictions for the company, check out this visualization of analyst forecasts for the company.

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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.