Anyone interested in Hippo Holdings Inc. (NYSE:HIPO) should probably be aware that the Chief Financial & Strategy Officer and Treasurer, Stewart Ellis, recently divested US$263k worth of shares in the company, at an average price of US$26.34 each. However, the silver lining is that the sale only reduced their total holding by 4.6%, so we're hesitant to read anything much into it, on its own.

Hippo Holdings Insider Transactions Over The Last Year

The Executive Officer, Yuval Harry, made the biggest insider sale in the last 12 months. That single transaction was for US$350k worth of shares at a price of US$18.52 each. That means that even when the share price was below the current price of US$27.04, an insider wanted to cash in some shares. We generally consider it a negative if insiders have been selling, especially if they did so below the current price, because it implies that they considered a lower price to be reasonable. While insider selling is not a positive sign, we can't be sure if it does mean insiders think the shares are fully valued, so it's only a weak sign. It is worth noting that this sale was only 42% of Yuval Harry's holding.

Insiders in Hippo Holdings didn't buy any shares in the last year. You can see the insider transactions (by companies and individuals) over the last year depicted in the chart below. If you want to know exactly who sold, for how much, and when, simply click on the graph below!

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Insider Ownership

Another way to test the alignment between the leaders of a company and other shareholders is to look at how many shares they own. We usually like to see fairly high levels of insider ownership. It appears that Hippo Holdings insiders own 12% of the company, worth about US$79m. We've certainly seen higher levels of insider ownership elsewhere, but these holdings are enough to suggest alignment between insiders and the other shareholders.

So What Do The Hippo Holdings Insider Transactions Indicate?

An insider sold Hippo Holdings shares recently, but they didn't buy any. And even if we look at the last year, we didn't see any purchases. While insiders do own shares, they don't own a heap, and they have been selling. We'd practice some caution before buying! So these insider transactions can help us build a thesis about the stock, but it's also worthwhile knowing the risks facing this company. While conducting our analysis, we found that Hippo Holdings has 3 warning signs and it would be unwise to ignore them.

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For the purposes of this article, insiders are those individuals who report their transactions to the relevant regulatory body. We currently account for open market transactions and private dispositions of direct interests only, but not derivative transactions or indirect interests.

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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.