Suncorp Group Ltd (ASX: SUN) shares are trading in the red on Tuesday afternoon. At the time of writing, the shares are down 1.06% at $19.16 a piece.
Over the past month, the share price has slipped 6.5% and for the year to date, it's slumped 15.7%.
The latest downturn follows Suncorp's insurance update late last week. The insurance company said it has received just over 5,500 claims with a net cost between $220 million and $260 million. This followed a significant hailstorm event, which affected customers in Queensland and Victoria.
Suncorp also held an investor update last week, which gave an overview of key components of its strategy to investors.
Following the announcements, analysts at Macquarie Group Ltd (ASX: MQG) have written a note to investors with their latest stance on the stock.
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What's next for Suncorp shares?
The broker confirmed its neutral rating on Suncorp shares. It also lowered its target price to $19.60 per share, down from $20.60 last week.
At the time of writing, the revised target price represents a potential 2.3% upside for investors over the next 12 months.
"Valuation: 12-month price target A$19.60 (previously A$20.60) based on a Sum of Parts methodology," the broker said in its note.
"Neutral. A perpetual style buy-back provides long term downside support. At current levels we believe valuation appears fair."
Macquarie has also revised Suncorp's earnings for FY26 and FY27. This reflects more clarity given the company's net financing costs and other profits or losses after tax. FY26 is now expected to be -6.9% and FY27 -5.9%. The broker expects -7% and -8% thereafter.
What did Macquarie have to say about Suncorp's latest updates?
The broker said its FY26 earnings guidance is unchanged, and it retains expectations that H1 FY26 hazards will be in line with guidance of $1.77 billion.
"MRE view: After this event, we expect SUN to run in line with the 1H26 allowance. In FY27 outbound, we have taken the opportunity to assume conservatism in the allowance, with ~$100m beats p.a," Macquarie said.
Macquarie said it was interesting that Suncorp's commercial division still has ambition to reach second place in terms of market share within its target margins.
The broker also highlighted a few points from the insurance company's investor day that it found interesting.
"#1) SUN intends to reinvest technology savings for growth; #2) SUN intends to turn off legacy systems straight after renewal policies are migrated (i.e., a 12- month roll which has started for the AA brand in NZ); #3) ~40% of the tech spend will be capitalised and amortised over 7 years; and #4) SUN anticipates its AI investment to have a ~2yr payback period," the broker said.
