Is UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) overvalued or undervalued?
Updated Nov 10, 2026 · hand-researched model · educational, not advice
At a recent price of $397.62, UnitedHealth Group Incorporated (UNH) sits below every lens we ran: our valuation lenses put the business somewhere between $401.25 and $484.11 per share. For a cyclical we value through the cycle we publish a range only (peer multiples and our researched mid-cycle DCF): where in the cycle the business sits decides where in that range it lands, and a single figure would claim we know that precisely. This is an educational model, not a price target or a recommendation.
The valuation discounts UnitedHealth Group Incorporated's projected free cash flows at a weighted-average cost of capital (WACC) of 8.0%, with a long-run terminal growth rate of 2.5%. About 79% of the enterprise value comes from the terminal value — the portion beyond the explicit forecast window — which is typical for a stable, cash-generative business and a reminder that small changes in the discount rate or terminal growth assumption swing the intrinsic value meaningfully.
Running the DCF in reverse — solving for the growth the current price already assumes — the market is implying roughly 0.7% annual revenue growth for UNH. Our base case instead compounds to about 3.4% a year over the same forecast, so the market is pricing in slower growth than our base case. The reverse-DCF is a quick sanity check: it reframes 'is this stock cheap?' as 'do I believe the growth the price requires?' rather than arguing over a single point estimate of fair value.
Sensitivity matters more than any single number. Across a reasonable band of discount-rate assumptions, UNH's modeled DCF value ranges from about $255.06 to $785.69 per share. If that range still sits below today's price, the market is optimistic relative to the model across the whole band; if it brackets the price, the stock is roughly fairly valued on our assumptions. Use the interactive slider to see exactly where your own cost-of-capital view lands.
How to read this page: the DCF fair value is what UnitedHealth Group Incorporated would be worth if its cash flows grow as modeled and are discounted at the stated WACC. The assumptions table shows every input and its source; the reverse-DCF shows what the market believes; the sensitivity band shows how fragile the answer is. None of this is investment advice — it is a transparent, auditable framework for forming your own view of UNH's intrinsic value. Figures update as new filings and prices come in.
The assumptions behind UNH's DCF
| Input | Value | Source |
|---|---|---|
| Base-year revenue | $447,567,000,000 | UnitedHealth Group FY2025 10-K (accession 0000731766-26-000062, filed 2026-03-02): us-gaap:Revenues FY2025 = $447,567M, +11.8% on FY2024's $400,278M (premiums $352,229M, the rest products, services and $3,920M of investment and other income). Most of the growth was Medicare Advantage membership (+755,000) and Inflation Reduction Act Part D effects that raised premium revenue, not profit. UNCHANGED as the base; 2026 belongs in the forecast. CROSS-CHECK: H1 2026 revenue was $223,753M, +1.2% on H1 2025's $221,191M (Q2 2026 Ex-99.1, accession 0000731766-26-000191), even as UnitedHealthcare served 1.6 million fewer people year over year — repricing is holding revenue up while membership falls. |
| Base EBIT margin | 4.2% | UnitedHealth Group FY2025 10-K (accession 0000731766-26-000062, filed 2026-03-02): GAAP earnings from operations $18,964M (us-gaap:OperatingIncomeLoss) / $447,567M = 4.24%, the lowest in at least a decade (2019-2024 ran 8.07%-8.77%). It carries a Q4 2025 pre-tax charge of $2,878M (cyberattack costs $799M, restructuring and other $2,521M, less a $442M net divestiture gain — Q4 2025 Ex-99.1, accession 0000731766-26-000025); adjusted earnings from operations were $21.7B, a 4.85% margin. The REPORTED figure is used because the forecast is also on a reported basis. The cause is medical cost: the medical care ratio rose to 89.1% from 85.5% in 2024 and 82.0% in 2022. NOTE ON WHAT THIS LINE CONTAINS: UnitedHealth books investment and other income ($3,920M in FY2025, 0.9% of revenue) inside revenue and therefore inside this margin. That income is earned mostly on float held by regulated insurance subsidiaries — the same cash this model refuses to count in net debt — so keeping it in EBIT and out of the bridge is the consistent treatment, not double counting. CROSS-CHECK: H1 2026 earnings from operations $16,981M / $223,753M = 7.59% (H1 2025: 6.45%) — but the first half is seasonally the strong half (Q2 2026 alone 7.13%), see the Year-1 note. |
| Forecast revenue growth | -0% → 3% → 5% → 5% → 4% | Assumption — TickerWorth's 5-year explicit forecast |
| Risk-free rate | 5.2% | US 10Y Treasury constant maturity (FRED DGS10): 5.24% on 2026-10-01, the latest published observation. House input shared by every model in this tracker. |
| Beta | 0.70 | Assumption — normalized estimate (yfinance published 5Y-monthly beta 0.622; managed-care peer betas): Published 5Y-monthly beta is 0.622. Normalized UP to 0.70, the managed-care peer median (yfinance 2026-10-03: ELV 0.696, HUM 0.745, MOH 0.755, CVS 0.58, CI 0.317, CNC 1.106; median ~0.72). Reason: UnitedHealth's own five-year window is dominated by a stock-specific collapse (52-week low $255.97 vs a high of $461.62) driven by a medical-cost shock, a suspended outlook and DOJ investigations into Medicare billing — idiosyncratic moves that a regression reads as noise, not co-movement with the market, which pushes measured beta DOWN. The peer median is a cleaner read of the business's systematic risk. CONSERVATIVE: raises the discount rate and lowers the value; the published 0.622 adds ~$31/share. |
| Terminal growth | 2.5% | Assumption — house default: House default 2.5% (roughly long-run nominal GDP), kept for comparability. ARGUABLY CONSERVATIVE FOR THIS BUSINESS: US health spending has outgrown GDP for most of the last half-century and UnitedHealth's revenue is a share of it, so a 3.0% terminal rate is defensible and adds ~$41/share. Held at the house rate because the pricing pressure from Medicare, Medicaid and employers that caps margins also caps how much faster than the economy an insurer can grow. Must remain < WACC of ~8.05%. |
| Diluted shares | 906M | UnitedHealth Group Q2 2026 10-Q (accession 0000731766-26-000197, filed 2026-08-10): Q2 2026 diluted weighted-average shares 906M (basic 902M; H1 908M; FY2025 911M). The count is FALLING: ~10.5M shares were bought back in H1 2026, including 6.4M bought by a counterparty under a $2.0B forward contract settled 2026-07-01, and only 897.6M were outstanding at 2026-07-31. Using the weighted 906M rather than ~901M (outstanding plus ~4M of dilution) is mildly conservative, about -$2/share. |
| Market price | $397.62 | Delayed quote · as of 2026-11-10 05:33 UTC |
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Most undervalued stocks (per our valuation) · Undervalued Healthcare stocks · All valued stocks · Interactive UNH valuation & downloadable modelTickerWorth is an educational DCF tool, not a licensed investment adviser. Figures are estimates derived from public filings and market data and can be wrong.