These 4 Stocks Are Wall Street’s Most Reliable Dividend Growers

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By Joel South Published

Quick Read

  • Chubb (CB) raised its dividend to $1.02 supported by an 84% combined ratio; Aflac (AFL) has delivered 43 consecutive years of dividend increases.

  • T. Rowe Price leads the group with a 4.5% yield but absorbed $13.7 billion in net client outflows in Q1 2026 alone.

  • Cincinnati Financial trades at roughly 10 times earnings and holds $8 billion in unrealized equity gains backing decades of unbroken dividend growth.

  • Act now: the analyst who called NVIDIA in 2010 just named his top 10 AI stocks — and Chubb didn't make the cut. Grab the names FREE today.

These 4 Stocks Are Wall Street’s Most Reliable Dividend Growers

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Insurance underwriters and asset managers rarely dominate the headlines, and that is exactly the point for income investors. These businesses generate float or fee streams, return capital consistently, and tend to raise payouts through cycles. The shared hook across the four names below: each has now been paying, and in most cases growing, quarterly dividends for well over two decades, with Aflac’s dividend history alone stretching back through 110 payment records and a verified multi-decade streak of annual increases.

Chubb

CB analyst ratings

Chubb (NYSE:CB | CB Price Prediction) is the world’s largest publicly traded property and casualty insurer, and the payout profile reads like a textbook compounder. The Board pushed the quarterly dividend from $0.97 to $1.02 in Q2 2026, keeping intact a growth pattern that has taken the payout from 86 cents in 2023 to $1.02 today. Shares traded around $341 on July 22, the forward yield sits at roughly 1.2% against an annualized forward dividend of $4.08.

Dividend safety here is essentially bulletproof. Trailing EPS of $27.59 versus a $3.88 per-share dividend leaves the payout deeply covered, and Q1 2026 alone produced operating cash flow of $3.95 billion, up 152% year over year, on $73.79 billion in shareholders’ equity. The combined ratio improved to 84.0% from 95.7%, indicating underwriting profit remains excellent. Buybacks of $1.143 billion in the quarter underline the cash return capacity.

The bull case: a globally diversified insurer trading at roughly 13 times trailing earnings with a beta of 0.406 and management guiding to double-digit EPS and tangible book value growth. Income investors get consistent raises, aggressive buybacks, and a fortress balance sheet backing every dividend check.

The caveat: yield is modest. If you want current income today, Chubb rewards patience through dividend growth rather than headline yield. Property and financial-lines pricing has also begun softening, which could compress underwriting margins if that continues.

Aflac

AFL analyst ratings

Aflac (NYSE:AFL) is the supplemental insurance heavyweight and one of the most reliable dividend growers in the S&P 500. The current quarterly dividend of 61 cents represents a 5.2% step up from the 58-cent rate paid throughout 2025. Management has publicly cited 43 consecutive years of dividend increases, and the dividend data confirms an unbroken pattern of annual raises across the full record. At $121.01 per share, the forward yield lands near 1.91%, based on the $2.44 annualized forward dividend.

Coverage is comfortable. Aflac earned $8.75 in trailing EPS against a $2.35 per-share dividend, and Q1 2026 alone produced $1.02 billion in net income on $4.35 billion in revenue, up 25.86% year over year. Shareholders’ equity of $29.49 billion and $3.5 billion in FY2025 buybacks underscore capital-return firepower. Recent hikes have accelerated: 40 cents in 2022 to 42 cent in 2023, 50 cents in 2024, 58 cents in 2025 and 61 cents in 2026.

The bull case: a low-beta (0.603) supplemental insurer with dominant U.S. and Japan franchises, a decades-long dividend-growth track record, and quarterly earnings growth of 38.6% year over year. It is, quite literally, one of the more boring compounders on the tape, and boring works.

The caveat: Japan yen exposure remains a genuine headwind, and Aflac has flagged pressure from variable investment income alongside a June 2025 cybersecurity incident. Currency and translation dynamics can create quarterly noise even when the underlying business is fine.

Cincinnati Financial

CINF analyst ratings

Cincinnati Financial (NASDAQ:CINF) is arguably the most under-the-radar name in the group and has one of the longest dividend-growth records in American finance. Management raised the quarterly payout 8% to 94 cents per share in Q1 2026, from 87 cents. The dividend data confirms year-over-year quarterly increases at least back to 1999, a multi-decade run of unbroken raises. On a $178.77 share price as of July 22, the yield is roughly 2.1%.

The safety math is arguably the best in this bundle. Trailing EPS of $17.25 against a $3.55 dividend per share gives massive coverage. FY2025 delivered $2.39 billion in net income on $12.63 billion in revenue, and the parent holds more than $5 billion in cash and marketable securities with $8 billion-plus in unrealized equity portfolio gains. Underwriting has posted 14 consecutive years of profits through 2025, and book value per share hit $102.35 at year-end 2025, up 15% year over year. Combined ratio of 95.6% in Q1 2026, improved from 113.3%, points to a recovering underwriting cycle.

The bull case: an old-school Midwest insurer trading at roughly 10 times trailing earnings, backed by an enormous equity portfolio, a multi-decade dividend-raise streak, and shrinking catastrophe drag. Investors looking for reliable income growth in a defensive sleeve of the market fit the profile. If a dedicated income playbook is your thing, our team’s research on long-streak payers is captured in a report we’ve been circulating on 10 Dividend Kings worth watching.

The caveat: catastrophe concentration is real. California wildfires drove the Q1 2025 combined ratio to 113.3%, and a bad cat quarter can bruise reported earnings even when the long-term thesis holds.

T. Rowe Price

TROW analyst ratings

T. Rowe Price (NASDAQ:TROW) is the highest-yielding name in the bundle and the only true high-yield entry. At $116.29 per share, the yield stands near 4.47% on a $1.30 quarterly payout and a $5.20 annualized forward dividend. The Board bumped the payout from $1.27 to $1.30 for Q1 2026, extending a growth ladder that has taken annual dividends from $4.88 in 2023 to $5.20 annualized in 2026.

Coverage remains solid. Trailing EPS of $9.52 comfortably clears the $5.11 dividend per share. Q1 2026 alone generated $966.3 million of operating cash flow, up 52.68% year over year, and the firm ended the quarter with $3.73 billion in cash and equivalents plus $1.71 trillion in ending AUM. Management returned $629 million to shareholders in Q1 2026 alone via dividends and buybacks. Prior special dividends in 2021 ($3.00) and 2015 ($2.00) highlight the firm’s willingness to top up ordinary returns when capital allows.

The bull case: a debt-free asset manager throwing off huge free cash flow, a 12 times trailing PE, and a yield well above the broader market’s. Buyers today get paid handsomely while they wait for flows to stabilize.

The caveat: persistent net client outflows continue. Q1 2026 net outflows totaled $13.7 billion, following FY2025 outflows of $56.9 billion, and fee rate compression to 38.4 basis points remains a live pressure on revenue mix.

The Takeaway

These four names share the traits income investors quietly prize: long dividend histories, well-covered payouts, and boring business models that generate cash through cycles. Chubb and Cincinnati Financial deliver defensive property and casualty underwriting with fortress balance sheets, Aflac layers on a verified multi-decade streak of raises, and T. Rowe Price offers the most current income at a mid-single-digit yield. Together, they cover the full spectrum of financial-sector income, from steady growth compounders to a genuine high-yield fee-based cash machine.

Contact [email protected] for any questions or corrections.

Photo of Joel South
About the Author Joel South →

Joel South covers large-cap stocks, dividend investing, and major market trends, with a focus on earnings analysis, valuation, and turning complex data into actionable insights for investors.

He brings more than 15 years of experience as an investor and financial journalist, including 12 years at The Motley Fool, where he served as an investment analyst, Bureau Chief, and later led the Fool.com investing news desk. He has also co-hosted an investing podcast and appeared across TV and radio discussing market trends.

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