WellPoint Inc. plans to buy lens retailer 1-800-Contacts Inc. in a deal worth an estimated $900 million, giving the insurer its first direct-to-consumer business outside selling individual health coverage.
The Indianapolis-based health insurer said 1-800 Contacts is attractive partly because it has bigger profit margins than its core insurance business, The Wall Street Journal reported.
Newly available data from private health insurance plans show that price hikes by hospitals, doctors and drug companies have kept employer spending rising recently even as their employees and dependents have moderated their consumption of health care services.
City-County Councilor Angela Mansfield filed the proposal covering city employees that would make same-sex and heterosexual couples who live together eligible for health insurance benefits.
The proposal, which sought twice-yearly reports on all the health insurer’s donations used for political campaigns or lobbying, was overwhelmingly voted down by WellPoint shareholders.
A mix of union groups, activist investors and single-payer advocates will call for increased disclosure from WellPoint, and some investment funds will vote against WellPoint board members who they say have failed to exercise proper oversight of WellPoint’s political spending.
The Indiana Supreme Court this week will consider whether hospital billing practices should be put on trial. The state’s highest court will hear oral arguments Thursday in a case in which two uninsured patients have sued Indiana University Health for charging them much higher prices than it would have charged insured patients.
When the same MRI at one facility costs $600 and at another costs $2,200, Dr. Robert Gregori would call that a business opportunity.
The auto and trucking fleet insurer reported profit of $11.5 million in the first quarter compared with a loss of $15.2 million in the prior-year period, when company earnings took a beating from earthquakes in Japan and New Zealand.
CNO Financial Group Inc. on Monday reported first-quarter earnings of $59.1 million, a 30-percent increase from the $45.1 million it earned in the same quarter last year.
More than 3 million health insurance policyholders and thousands of employers will share $1.3 billion in rebates this year, thanks to health care reforms, a research group said Thursday. Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. is expected to return $94 million.
David Karandos failed to make fine payments due March 1 and April 1, and Securities Commissioner Chris Naylor has ordered him to appear at a May hearing to make the case why “additional consequences” aren’t warranted.
Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. sees a $100 billion market in the states it serves to provide managed care for poor, elderly patients in the Medicare and Medicaid programs.
The charge stems from a legal dispute involving changes in some life-insurance policies sold by subsidiary Conseco Life Insurance Co.
CNO Financial Group Inc. has agreed to pay $9.9 million to settle allegations by regulators in four states that its Bankers Life subsidiary acted as an investment adviser and broker-dealer without proper state licensing.
Angela Braly, CEO of the Indianapolis-based health insurance company, received total compensation of nearly $13.3 million, down 1.5 percent from the $13.5 million she made the previous year.
Indianapolis-based benefits brokerage FirstPerson acquired the small-employer human resource division of Indianapolis-based consulting firm FlashPoint last week in a bid to provide a wider array of services to small businesses.
More than $3.6 trillion has been restored to U.S. equity values since October amid better-than-estimated earnings and economic data. Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc. surged 11 percent this week, as the Supreme Court debated the health care law.
Sales at OneAmerica Financial Partners Inc. surged 29 percent in 2011, on top of a 24-percent jump in 2010, the Indianapolis-based life insurer announced Monday.
Rates are set to rise as insurers increasingly note the link between older workers’ health and productivity.
