Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA): History, Ownership, Mission, How It Works & Makes Money

How does a company that combines life insurance, funeral services, and mortgage lending-three seemingly disparate industries-maintain a 10.5% annualized Return on Equity (ROE) in a volatile 2025 market? Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) is a unique financial entity, celebrating its 60th anniversary this year, that proves diversification is more than just a buzzword, even as its consolidated nine-month after-tax earnings dipped 30% to $18,866,000 through September 2025. You need to understand the mechanics of this model, especially how the Life Insurance segment's 9.1% revenue growth in Q2 2025 offsets the ongoing $1.7 million loss in the Mortgage division, to defintely grasp its true value.

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) History

Given Company's Founding Timeline

You're looking for the bedrock of Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA), and it starts with a simple life insurance company in the mid-1960s. The company's origin story is one of conservative, steady growth, moving from a single-service insurer to a diversified financial entity that handles life's major transitions-insurance, mortgages, and final arrangements.

Year established

The company's roots were planted in 1965 with the founding of Security National Life Insurance Company.

Original location

The first office was a small, rented house in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Founding team members

The initial leadership included George R. Quist, Robert L. Moody, and W. Lloyd Hoskins.

Initial capital/funding

The company started with approximately $543,000 in assets, fueled by an initial capital infusion of about $880,000.

Given Company's Evolution Milestones

The real story here is the strategic diversification, a move that made the company resilient against sector-specific downturns. You can see the deliberate shift from pure insurance to a horizontally integrated model across three distinct, yet related, segments.

Given Company's Transformative Moments

The biggest transformation was the 1981 reorganization. That move created the holding company structure, which allows the Life Insurance, Cemetery and Mortuary, and Mortgage Loan segments to operate independently but benefit from a shared balance sheet and cross-selling opportunities. Honestly, that horizontal integration is the secret sauce.

Near-term, the financial landscape in 2025 has been a challenge, particularly in the mortgage and investment segments. The numbers show it:

• Q1 2025 after-tax earnings were $4,338,000, a sharp 42% decrease from the prior year, largely due to a drop in investment income tied to real estate activities and stock market declines.
• Q2 2025 after-tax earnings came in at $6,506,000, a 10% decline year-over-year, still showing pressure from the mortgage unit.
• Q3 2025 after-tax earnings continued the trend, decreasing by 34% from $11,831,000 in Q3 2024.

Still, the company's resilience is clear. The Board authorized a 5% stock dividend on June 27, 2025, marking the 37th consecutive year of declaring a stock dividend, a clear signal of management's long-term confidence despite the earnings dip. Plus, joining the Russell 3000 Index in June 2025 was a huge step for institutional awareness. You can dive deeper into the strategic intent behind the operations here: Mission Statement, Vision, & Core Values of Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA).

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Ownership Structure

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) is a publicly traded company on the NASDAQ Stock Market, but its ownership structure is heavily influenced by a core group of insiders, specifically the Quist family and the Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP). This dynamic means that while the stock is available to all investors, a significant portion of the voting power-and thus control-rests with a long-term, family-aligned block.

Security National Financial Corporation's Current Status

The company is a publicly traded entity, listed on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol SNFCA. This status requires compliance with all Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations, providing investors with transparency through quarterly (10-Q) and annual (10-K) filings. The company's market capitalization stood at approximately $215.33 million as of November 2025, reflecting its position as a smaller, diversified financial services firm in the life insurance, cemetery/mortuary, and mortgage sectors.

To be fair, joining the Russell 3000 Index in June 2025 did increase its visibility to larger institutional investors, but the core decision-making power remains concentrated.

Security National Financial Corporation's Ownership Breakdown

The company's control is anchored by a combination of family-aligned trusts and the employee plan, creating a substantial control block. Institutional investors, including major asset managers like BlackRock, Inc. and The Vanguard Group, Inc., hold significant, but minority, positions. The data below reflects major shareholder filings from the 2025 fiscal year.

Here's the quick math: the combined ESOP and Quist family entities own over 30% of the company, giving them a powerful voice in all major corporate actions and defintely insulating the board from most activist investor pressure. This structure prioritizes stability over rapid change. You can dive deeper into the market's perspective on this at Exploring Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Security National Financial Corporation's Leadership

The company is steered by a highly experienced, long-tenured executive team, with the Quist family maintaining a central role in both management and governance. This stability is a key factor in the company's conservative, long-term operational approach.

• Scott M. Quist: Serves as both the President and Chief Executive Officer (CEO), and Chairman of the Board, a structure that concentrates strategic and operational control.
• Garrett S. Sill: Holds the critical financial roles of Chief Financial Officer (CFO) and Treasurer, overseeing the company's capital structure and financial reporting.
• Jeffrey R. Stephens: The Secretary and Senior General Counsel, managing legal and corporate governance matters.
• The average tenure for the management team is notably high, at approximately 14.1 years, which suggests a deep institutional knowledge but also a cautious approach to new trends.

The leadership's primary focus is on managing the three distinct business segments-Life Insurance, Cemetery and Mortuary, and Mortgages-to maximize the interest rate spread on annuities and capitalize on real estate development opportunities within their existing property portfolio.

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Mission and Values

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) operates without a single, explicitly published mission statement, but its core purpose is clearly defined by a commitment to long-term shareholder value and conservative financial principles across its life insurance, mortuary, and mortgage segments. This focus on integrity and service is the cultural defintely DNA that drives its diversified business model.

Security National Financial Corporation's Core Purpose

The company's core purpose centers on balancing strategic growth with financial stability, ensuring it can meet its long-term obligations to policyholders and shareholders alike. This dual focus is what allows them to manage three very different business lines-from pre-need funeral services to mortgage origination-under one roof.

Official mission statement

While an official, one-sentence mission statement is not available in public filings, the company's operational priorities function as its de facto mission, emphasizing consistent performance and strategic expansion. The key priorities are:

• Enhance shareholder value through a combination of strategic acquisitions and organic growth.
• Maintain financial balance and resiliency across its combined businesses, especially given market volatility.
• Operate on conservative and sound financial principles to ensure long-term relationships and stability.

Here's the quick math: the company's annualized Return On Equity (ROE) for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, was 10.5%, showing tangible progress toward their long-term average ROE of 13.3%. That's a clear marker of their commitment to value.

Vision statement

The company's vision is a forward-looking strategy focused on optimizing its niche markets and strengthening its capital base to weather economic cycles. It's a realist's vision that maps near-term risks to clear actions.

• Continue strategic focus on niche insurance products and the cemetery and mortuary business.
• Achieve sustained profitability in the Mortgage Segment, which saw a pre-tax net income of $66,000 in Q3 2025, up from $16,000 in Q3 2024.
• Maintain adequate liquidity to fund policyholder liabilities and operating expenses, a crucial element in the life insurance business.
• Invest strategically in sales force expansion and technology to drive sustainable long-term value.

The vision is to return to a higher ROE, plus they are actively investing in residential land holdings and builder relationships, a medium-to-longer-term strategy that sacrifices some current income for higher future yields. You can read more about their shareholder dynamics in Exploring Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Security National Financial Corporation slogan/tagline

Security National Financial Corporation does not use a widely-publicized, formal slogan or tagline. Instead, the company's public identity is built on its history and its diversified service offering-life insurance, funeral services, and mortgage lending-which speaks for itself. They recently commemorated 60 years in business in 2025, a longevity that serves as its own statement of stability and trust.

The 9.4% increase in Funeral Home Revenue to $3.52 million in Q3 2025 shows the strength of their 'end of life' services, which is a core part of their enduring market position. That's the real-world tagline.

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) How It Works

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) operates as a diversified financial services holding company, primarily generating revenue by integrating three distinct segments: selling life insurance, providing cemetery and mortuary services, and originating mortgage loans. This structure allows the company to capture value across the entire customer lifecycle, from financial planning to end-of-life services.

Here's the quick math: For the third quarter of 2025, the company reported total revenues of $89.3 million, with net earnings of $7.8 million, showing the mixed performance across these segments.

Security National Financial Corporation's Product/Service Portfolio

Security National Financial Corporation's Operational Framework

The company's operations are built on a synergistic model, particularly between its insurance and death care segments, which helps to stabilize revenue streams. The Life Insurance segment collects premiums, which are then invested to generate returns, covering future policyholder claims. In the second quarter of 2025, Life Insurance revenues increased 9.1% to $51.5 million, showing solid growth.

The core of the framework is the integrated pre-need model. Insurance agents sell pre-need funeral plans, which are life insurance policies designed to fund future services at the company's mortuaries and cemeteries. This cross-selling creates a captive customer base for the death care segment. The Mortgage segment, while facing market challenges, is focused on origination and underwriting, and it returned to profitability in Q3 2025 with a pre-tax net income of $66,000.

• Capital Deployment: Premiums and other capital are invested in a diversified portfolio, including commercial real estate loans and residential land holdings, like the recent $50 million investment in land holdings for future growth.
• Value Creation: The insurance segment provides a steady cash flow and investment capital, while the death care segment offers high-margin services, often pre-paid, locking in future revenue.
• Distribution: Insurance products are sold through a commissioned sales force of independent agents across 42 states.

You can see how the different parts affect the whole in Breaking Down Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Financial Health: Key Insights for Investors.

Security National Financial Corporation's Strategic Advantages

The company's primary advantage is its unique, diversified structure, which acts as a buffer against market volatility in any single sector. This is defintely a key strength, especially when interest rates challenge the mortgage market.

• Integrated Business Model: The combination of pre-need insurance and death care services creates a powerful, self-referencing ecosystem. The insurance product funds the funeral, securing revenue for the mortuary and cemetery years in advance.
• Niche Market Focus: Emphasizing pre-need funeral plans targets a specific demographic (age 45-85, low-to-moderate income) with a necessary product, allowing for specialized marketing and distribution.
• Financial Stability: The company maintains a strong balance sheet, reporting $678.9 million in total assets as of the fiscal year 2024, providing the capacity for strategic investments and acquisitions.
• Regional Concentration: A well-established, physical presence in the Utah, California, and New Mexico death care markets provides regional brand recognition and customer loyalty, catering effectively to local needs.

The strategic move to invest in residential land holdings, despite temporarily impacting current income, positions the company for higher future yields by leveraging its real estate and mortgage expertise.

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) How It Makes Money

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) generates its revenue through a diversified, horizontally integrated model centered on three distinct, yet complementary, segments: selling and servicing life insurance policies, originating and servicing mortgage loans, and providing cemetery and mortuary services. The company essentially operates on a financial flywheel, where insurance premiums and pre-need funeral sales generate a float (investable capital) that is then deployed to earn investment income and fund its mortgage and real estate ventures.

Security National Financial Corporation's Revenue Breakdown

The company's financial resilience comes from this three-pronged approach, which helps buffer the volatility inherent in the mortgage market. Here is the revenue breakdown for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, based on the reported total revenue of $261.61 million and the segment-specific disclosures.

Here's the quick math: The Cemetery and Mortuary segment reported $25.1 million in revenue, which is 9.6% of the $261.61 million total nine-month revenue. The remaining $236.51 million is split between Life Insurance and Mortgage. Based on the business structure, Life Insurance is the primary driver, estimated here at 65.0% of total revenue, with the Mortgage segment contributing the final 25.4%.

Business Economics

The economic fundamentals of Security National Financial Corporation are rooted in risk management, investment income, and counter-cyclical business performance across its segments. The strategy is to use the predictable cash flow from life insurance to stabilize the more cyclical mortgage business.

• Life Insurance: This segment operates on a float-based model. Premiums collected from policyholders are invested in a portfolio, generating investment income that is a significant corporate-wide contributor. The pricing strategy involves actuarial risk assessment to set premiums for products like whole life, term life, and specialized pre-need funeral plans. Management has increased premium rates, which they anticipate will add 1.5 percentage points to the Return on Equity (ROE) over the shorter term. The challenge is maintaining new premium sales, which management noted was a weakness in Q3 2025.
• Mortgage: Revenue comes from loan origination fees and servicing fees. The segment's profitability is highly sensitive to interest rate fluctuations and the health of the housing market. This segment was profitable in Q3 2025, up over Q3 2024, a significant milestone given the generally troubled mortgage market. They focus heavily on builder relationships and a wide range of loan products to capture market share, even when the first-time buyer market is weak.
• Cemetery and Mortuary: This segment generates revenue from the sale of burial plots, funeral merchandise, and service fees, including pre-need sales. The pricing is tiered, offering options like 'Affordable Funerals & Cremations' alongside full-service offerings, which is a key response to the market trend toward lower-revenue cremation services. Stabilized pre-need cemetery land sales are a major profit driver and a bright spot in Q3 2025.

For a deeper look into the capital behind these operations, check out Exploring Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?

Security National Financial Corporation's Financial Performance

As of September 30, 2025, the company's performance shows revenue growth but a notable drop in net earnings, reflecting a challenging operating environment and strategic investment in talent.

• Total Revenue: Revenue for the nine months ended September 30, 2025, was $261.61 million, a modest increase compared to the prior year.
• Net Earnings Decline: Net earnings for the nine months fell to $18.66 million, a 30% decrease from $26.58 million in the same period of 2024. This drop is mainly due to higher policy-related expenses and increased benefits.
• Return on Equity (ROE): The ROE for the nine months was 7.9%, though management anticipates an annualized ROE of about 10.5% by year-end, which would put it back into double digits. That is defintely the number to watch.
• Balance Sheet Strength: Book value per share, a key metric for financial institutions, improved to $14.79 as of September 30, 2025, up from $13.76 at the end of 2024. This signals balance sheet strengthening despite the earnings pressure.

Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Market Position & Future Outlook

Security National Financial Corporation maintains a stable, niche position in the US financial services sector, leveraging its unique horizontal integration of life insurance, cemetery/mortuary services, and mortgage lending. While the company faces near-term earnings pressure-with net earnings down 30% to $18.66 million for the nine months ended September 30, 2025-its diversified model and focus on strategic real estate investments position it for long-term capital appreciation and operational resilience.

Competitive Landscape

Security National Financial Corporation operates across three distinct, but related, segments, which means it competes with different giants in each vertical. In the broader life insurance market, its scale is tiny, but its advantage lies in its specialized focus on the 'end of life' product ecosystem.

Here's the quick math: Security National Financial Corporation's nine-month 2025 revenue of $261.61 million is minuscule compared to the multi-billion dollar revenues of major US life insurers, which is why its primary competitive edge is its vertical integration, not market share volume. It's defintely a small-cap player in a large-cap world.

Opportunities & Challenges

The company's future trajectory hinges on successfully executing its real estate strategy and stabilizing its mortgage segment against a backdrop of industry-wide regulatory shifts.

Industry Position

Security National Financial Corporation's market position is best understood as a financially resilient, diversified small-cap entity focused on a specific consumer lifecycle. The company's annualized Return on Equity (ROE) of 10.5% as of September 30, 2025, shows operational strength, even if it's below the company's 10-year average of 13.3%.

• Core Resilience: The Life Insurance and Death Care segments are performing well operationally, with the Life Insurance segment having its second-best Q1 in five years and the Death Care segment having its third-best Q1 in five years, demonstrating the strength of their niche focus.
• Balance Sheet Strength: Total assets stood at over $1.56 billion and stockholders' equity was $365.4 million as of September 30, 2025, providing a solid capital base.
• Growth Strategy: Management is actively pursuing growth through acquisitions and operational efficiencies, aiming to offset the drag from the volatile mortgage business by improving profitability in the core segments.

For a deeper dive into the institutional interest driving the stock, you should check out Exploring Security National Financial Corporation (SNFCA) Investor Profile: Who's Buying and Why?