"Health insurers make less in 2013" by Robert Weisman | Globe Staff, February 28, 2014
Earnings declined for the four largest Massachusetts health insurers last year as they stepped up investments in new products, technology, and markets in a rapidly changing business.
At the same time, compensation for top executives rose at two of the health insurance companies while declining at two others, according to reports filed with the state Friday.
The highest-paid executive at the nonprofit insurers was Eric H. Schultz, chief executive of Harvard Pilgrim Health Care in Wellesley. He drew total compensation of $1.9 million last year, up 38.5 percent from the nearly $1.4 million he received in 2012. But the biggest part of his compensation was a bonus payable in 2013 from a three-year incentive plan.
For all the health insurers, net income was squeezed in 2013 by mounting competition, as they responded to pressure from government and employers to make care more affordable.
But not executive salaries.
“We’re facing the same challenges the whole industry is facing,” said Allen Maltz, chief financial officer at Boston-based Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts, the state’s largest health insurance carrier. He cited “adaptation and modernization” of information systems in response to new federal coding requirements and a consumer push for more accessible data.
Blue Cross Blue Shield paid its chief executive, Andrew Dreyfus, total compensation of $1.3 million in 2013, a 13.1 percent increase from the $1.2 million he received the prior year.
Just the percentages are $taggering.
Two other insurance CEOs drew smaller pay last year. Total compensation fell 1.6 percent to $1.8 million for James Roosevelt Jr. at Tufts Health Plan in Watertown, and nearly 21 percent to $970,266 for W. Patrick Hughes at Worcester-based Fallon Health, according to the companies’ filings with the state Division of Insurance.
Aww, the last guy didn't get his million.
The four insurers also continued paying their directors last year. The highest board fees were $87,086 for chairman William Van Faasen at Blue Cross Blue Shield, $60,000 for director Davey Scoon at Tufts Health Plan, $37,613 for director Constance S. Barr at Harvard Pilgrim, and $26,000 for chairman David W. Hills at Fallon, according to the filings.
It's handing money away to people who already have it so they can sit in on a few meeting over a few months.
Net income last year declined 57.8 percent to $69.1 million for Blue Cross Blue Shield, 12 percent to $19.8 million for Harvard Pilgrim, 32 percent to $70.3 million for Tufts Health Plan, and 13.7 percent to $13.2 million for Fallon, the companies’ filings said.
“We were spot on budget for our net income for the year,” said Charley Goheen, chief financial officer for Harvard Pilgrim. But, he said, income was reduced because “we’re making significant investments, going to a new [information technology] platform, expanding in Connecticut, and returning to the Medicare Advantage market.”
You guys fix the software program yet?
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Let's hope that in$urance kicks in:
"Liberty Mutual’s CEO gets 23% pay increase" by Deirdre Fernandes | Globe Staff, March 01, 2014
Boston insurance giant Liberty Mutual had very profitable 2013, and so did its chief executive, David Long, whose pay package rose more than 20 percent last year to nearly $11 million.
Long took home $1 million in base salary and also earned a $4.9 million bonus and nearly $5 million in additional incentives and other compensation, including retirement savings and the personal use of a corporate airplane.
As if money addicts needed incentive.
In Springfield, another state insurance powerhouse, MassMutual, boosted the compensation of its chief executive, Roger Crandall, by 5 percent to nearly $12 million.
See: Mutual In$urance
Along with his salary of $1 million, Crandall earned a $3.4 million bonus and more than $7 million in additional incentives other compensation. State regulations require insurers to report the compensation of their top executives each year.
As mutual insurers, Liberty Mutual and MassMutual are owned by policyholders, rather than shareholders.
Critics of the multimillion dollar pay packages have argued that the surplus profits should go to the customers rather than executives, or be reinvested in the business.
But company officials say the pay reflects the growth the companies have had under these chief executives. The pay, they add, is comparable to that of their peers at other major insurers.
The $elf-ju$tifying, $elf-$erving $y$tem is $ick then.
Executive compensation is “based on company performance, benchmark data, market practices, individual performance, and other factors,” said Mark Cybulski, a spokesman for MassMutual. MassMutual reported a 3 percent increase in its revenues in 2013 to $27.6 billion.
Liberty Mutual has done particularly well in recent years, John Cusolito, a spokesman for the company said, and Long is being paid for his success
“David Long’s compensation for 2013 reflects our improved operating performance from 2011 to 2012,” Cusolito said. In 2012, the company’s profits more than doubled to $829 million from the previous year.
Liberty Mutual did almost as well in 2013, with profits growing to $1.7 billion, according to its annual earnings reported this past week.
And yet food stamps are being cut and Washington can't pass unemployment extensions.
The company saw a strong growth in its sales of auto and homeowner’s polices while benefiting from fewer claims due to major storms.
Fewer claims from major storms when I have fart-mi$ters telling me the world is falling because of bad storms?
Btw, there were chemtrails in the sky again yesterday, followed by a gray and dreary day again.
In 2012, the company received nearly 100,000 claims related to Hurricane Sandy, which battered major cities along the East Coast and forced the company to record an $886 million pretax loss.
Last year, the company spent 39 percent less on damage from catastrophic weather.
Despite the profits in 2013, Liberty Mutual told employees last year that it would be reducing its contribution to worker retirement plans and other benefits. The company said the changes to the benefits package would bring it in line with those of similar financial firms.
Yup, executives rewarded because it would line things up, while you low-level slobs see things cut or taken away to align things.
So when is a good time to kill and eat your bo$$?
Liberty Mutual’s executive pay became particularly controversial after state filings two years ago revealed that the company’s longtime former executive Edmund F. “Ted” Kelly received $50 million a year from 2008 to 2010, making him one of the highest paid corporate executives in the country .
Kelly stepped down as chairman of the Liberty Mutual board of directors in June 2013.
For his half a year on the board, Kelly earned $214,618 in pay and $40,631 in personal use of the company’s plane.
Yes, as we $ee, de$pite the alleged outrage and government investigations and reports nothing has really changed at all.
Time to go ca$h that check!
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Interesting how that article -- like another -- was missing from the rostrum.
Btw, Liberty Mutual also says it sees “huge growth potential” in the area of hacker in$urance.
And who benefits?
Also see: Amid high profits, Liberty Mutual cuts benefits
Yeah, "Liberty Mutual is cutting back contributions to retirement plans and other benefits for its employees, just a year after a public uproar over lavish pay and perks for top executives of the Boston insurer, and "the cuts come on the heels of former chief executive Edmund F. “Ted” Kelly’s retirement, capping a four-year period in which he earned $200 million, making him one of the highest-paid executives in the country. Kelly retained his private-jet privileges until he stepped down as chairman in late June. The Globe has reported that he is receiving an annual pension of about $3.3 million."
So what's your policy?
Also see:
Today's Globe Made Me Cry
Boston Globe Handkerchief
They kind of go together, don't they?
What other CEOs are up to as we head shopping:
"Retailer: Rival CEO posed as exec to get secrets" The Record, March 01, 2014
TRENTON, N.J. — The chief executive of a sporting goods chain who once appeared on the TV show ‘‘Undercover Boss’’ pretended to be an executive from a rival company in an effort to get confidential information, according to a lawsuit.
Dick’s Sporting Goods claims in a lawsuit filed Feb. 20 that Mitchell Modell, chief executive of Modell’s Sporting Goods, showed up at a Dick’s store in Princeton in February saying he was a Dick’s senior vice president. The lawsuit was first reported Friday by The Record newspaper.
He was docking around, huh?
Dick’s alleges Modell told employees he was to meet the Dick’s chief executive there and persuaded workers to show him the backroom of the store and to answer questions about the business. Modell gathered information about online sales, including a ‘‘ship from store’’ program, the lawsuit said.
Retailers spy on each other all the time.
Yeah, and who cares? Who cares about $hitty governments and $hitty corporations spying on each other? It's the private and innocent citizen being sucked up in the NSA dragnet that I care about. Of course, this is a typical diversion and distraction from the crap media.
In his autobiography, Sam Walton writes about covert shopping trips to keep tabs on rivals like Kmart and Price Club. But if the lawsuit’s allegations are true, this appears to be a particularly egregious case. It is rare that a CEO would actually get caught misrepresenting himself to store employees, experts say.
Yeah, CEOs are as pure as driven $now.
A Dick’s spokesman said company policy prevented him from commenting on pending litigation. A Modell’s spokesman was not immediately available to comment Friday.
Neither will I. This $hit-$lop $peaks for it$elf.
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