American health insurance industry witnessed a stormy past year with multiple COVID-19 waves being reported in different parts of the country. However, despite Covid-19 pushing up the costs by around 10%, many payers made some modest growth fueled by government businesses and their respective specialty areas.
DistilINFO takes into account the year-to-date earnings numbers (the financial numbers of first three quarters of the year) for the nine exchange-listed payers.
DistilInfo FAST FIVE
1. UnitedHealth Group
Maintained its top position with the largest revenues for the nine month period at $ 231.85 Billion, a 21% jump over $191.67 B in same period last year.
Company’s net earnings for the January-September period were nearly flat at $13.541 B versus $13.417 B in the comparable period last year, indicating a year-on-year growth of 0.9%.
2. CVS Health (Aetna)
Company’s total revenues for the nine-month was $215.507 B versus $199.152 B, up 8.2% y-o-y.
CVS’ year-to-date net income was $6.602 B versus $6.217B, showing a modest rise of 6% y-o-y.
3. Cigna
Connecticut-headquartered insurance and healthcare major Cigna has recorded nine-month adjusted revenues at $128.402 B, a rise of 8.44% over $118.398 B recorded in the corresponding period last year.
However, company’s adjusted earnings came under pressure with cost increase during the period. The net adjusted earnings for the nine-month period was $5.408 B versus $5.528 a marginal dip of 2.17%.
4. Anthem
Anthem has reported 13% jump in the nine-month revenues for at $100.925 B against $89.275 B in a year-ago period. Net income too made impressive gains of 9.5% to $6.301 B for the period against $5.755 B in the corresponding period last year.
5. Centene Corporation
Total revenues inched closer to reach 100 Billion dollar mark. For the January-September period, company registered total revenues of $93.414 B, with a growth of 13% from $82.827 B in the same period last year. Net income, however came under heavy pressure during the period eroding about 59% of the profits. Centene posted net income of $748 Million as against $1.820 B in the same period last year.
6. Humana Inc
Company’s total revenues so far this year increased by 6.7% to $62.010 B as against $58.093 B in the corresponding period last year. Net income fell by 19% during the period to $2.9 B versus $3.6 B in the nine-month period of 2020.
7. Molina Healthcare Inc
Headquartered in Long Beach, California, Molina Healthcare registered sharp 44% jump in the total revenues for the nine month of the current fiscal. Company registered revenues of $20.362 B versus $14.188 B in the same period last year. However, Molina followed the suite of a few other insurance players on profits, which came under cost pressures. Net income for the period was down by 13% to $556 M versus $639 M recorded last year.
8. Bright Health Group
A modest health insurance player, Bright Health Group posted nine-month revenues at $3 B, a sharp 252% jump over $0.85 B in the same period last year. However, the company’s losses widened from $83.6 M in January-September 2020 to $365 M so far this year.
9. Oscar Health, Inc.
A relatively new health insurance player, Oscar Health registered a massive 300% jump in the total revenues for the nine-month period at $1.342 B, as compared to $305 M in corresponding period last year. The payer’s losses widened during the nine month period to $373 M versus $217 M in the same period last year.
SUMMARY:
While there are other non-for-profit and government-run health insurance players, larger enough to find place in the list, the current ranking of the payers listed on the stock exchanges showed that, while the revenues for all of them have jumped from a modest single digit to a phenomenal 300%, there were cost pressures which dented the growth in earnings. The fourth quarter outlook, however, remains uncertain amidst the outbreak of the new COVID-19 variant – Omicron.
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