UnitedHealth revenue nearly equals its top four competitors combined

Related: UnitedHealth forecasts loss of nearly 1M employer plan enrollees amid price hikes

Only one of the five insurers — Cigna — managed to increase health insurance operating earnings during the latest quarter when compared with what the insurers posted for the fourth quarter of 2024. But, in spite of all of the drama, two of the insurers increased major medical enrollment, and four increased revenue.

What it means: Health insurers may be suffering from rising health care costs and negativity in Washington, but the five included here produced a total of almost $180 billion in the fourth quarter alone.

They continue to be a major force to be reckoned with.

The data: We've gone through the insurers earnings releases and financial statements to create a breakdown of results for the latest quarter for the five big health insurers, two major stop-loss insurance providers and two brokers that break out separate health revenue figures.

For companies with two or more "reporting segments," the revenue figures are for the health insurance segments.

The earnings or income figures are operating results, not net income figures, and each company may have used somewhat different rules to calculate the operating earnings.

We came up with the figures for how many times company executives or securities analysts mentioned "employers" during their fourth-quarter earnings calls by searching through the transcripts for the terms "employer" and "employers." In some cases, we may have missed references to employers if the conference call participants used different terms to refer to the group health market.

The compilation excludes results for some health insurance giants, such as Health Care Service Corp. and Kaiser Permanente, which do not sell stock to the public and do not hold quarterly conference calls with securities analysts.

Insurers

Cigna: Cigna Healthcare

Revenue: $11.2 billion. (Down 16%.)

Adjusted income from operations, pre-tax: $734 million. (Up 44%.)

Medical enrollment: 18.1 million. (Down 5.4%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 12.

CVS Health (Aetna): Health Care Benefits

Revenue: $36.3 billion. (Up 10%.)

Adjusted operating loss: $676 million. (Not meaningful.)

Medical enrollment: 26.6 million. (Down 1.8%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 1.

Elevance Health (Anthem): Health Benefits

Revenue: $41.8 billion. (Up 11%)

Adjusted operating gain: $200 million. (Flat.)

Medical enrollment: 45.2 million. (Down 1.1%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 8.

Oscar Health

Revenue: $2.8 billion. (Up 17%.)

Loss from operations: $334 million. (Not meaningful.)

Medical enrollment: 2 million. (Up 22%)

Earnings call references to employers: 6.

UnitedHealth: UnitedHealthcare

Revenue: $87.1 billion. (Up 17%.)

Earnings from operations: $300 million. (Down 90%.)

Medical enrollment: 49.8 million. (Up 0.9%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 3.

Stop-loss providers

Sun Life Financial

Medical stop-loss, premiums: $692 million. (Up 1%.)

Sales: $888 million. (Up 58%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 1.

Voya

Medical stop-loss, premiums: $391 million. (Down 13%.)

Sales: $27 million. (Up 125%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 5.

Brokers

Aon

Health solutions revenue: $1.1 billion. (Up 3%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 1.

Marsh (Mercer)

Health revenue: $527 million. (Up 6%.)

Earnings call references to employers: 1.