Here’s how major health insurers’ stock performed in May 2024. Elevance Health, Inc. had the highest closing stock price among major commercial insurers as of May 31, 2024, at $538.48. Humana Inc. had the highest closing stock price among major Medicare insurers at $358.12.

During presentations at recent investor conferences and meetings, three of the industry’s so-called “insurtechs” expressed a notable degree of confidence in their ability to profit from the Medicare Advantage space, even as their more diversified and established publicly traded peers struggle with increased utilization and diminishing reimbursement. That’s largely because of the investments they’ve made in proprietary technology that is driving care coordination.

In opening remarks at the company’s June 10 annual stockholder meeting, Clover Health Investments, Corp. CEO Andrew Toy touted year-over-year improvement in adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) — the company recorded a profit for the first time — “all in the same year that the greater Medicare Advantage ecosystem took a step back.” Referring to its cloud-based, artificial intelligence-powered clinical support tool Clover Assistant, he told investors, “The fact that our entire clinical management model is driven by technology is something that we believe to be a significant moat for us and something that bodes well for our business as we move into a technology-centric, AI-accelerated world.”

Although improving Medicare Advantage margins has been the hottest topic recently in managed care, executives at Elevance Health, Inc. at a recent investor conference made some noteworthy comments about the firm’s commercial and Affordable Care Act exchange businesses — both of which insurers are talking more glowingly about amid government-business headwinds.

Regarding the company’s ACA exchange business, “we certainly aren’t looking for membership over margin,” Morgan Kendrick, president for the insurers commercial and specialty health benefits segment, said during a June 12 question-and-answer session at the Goldman Sachs Global Healthcare Conference.

Months after rumors of a brewing deal with Humana Inc. generated a spate of headlines, The Cigna Group’s chief financial officer is signaling clearly that the company isn’t eager to jump into the mergers and acquisitions game until the conditions are just right.

“We continue to view inorganic activity through the lens of, it needs to be strategically attractive for the company,” CFO Brian Evanko said during a question-and-answer session with analyst Nathan Rich during the Goldman Sachs Global Healthcare Conference on June 11.

Although UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty caused a brief health insurer stock selloff with his remarks about a Medicaid “disturbance,” both his company and other managed care powerhouses have since been busy trying to reassure jittery investors.

The trouble started on May 29, when Witty was answering questions from analyst Lance Wilkes during the Bernstein Strategic Decisions Conference. Witty pointed out that “there’s probably going to be some disturbance around” syncing Medicaid managed care payment rates with the heightened costs associated with covering Medicaid enrollees, now that millions of people have been dropped from the rolls during the “unwinding” process.

Although insurers have bet big — and cashed in — on privatized Medicare and Medicaid plans, recently those business lines have shown some signs of distress.

For example, Humana Inc. and CVS Health Corp.’s Aetna this week put concrete numbers behind the Medicare Advantage membership losses that they expect to sustain next year due to significant headwinds facing the MA industry. And heightened medical loss ratios in managed Medicaid dinged the otherwise solid first-quarter 2024 financial results recently reported by Centene Corp. and Molina Healthcare, Inc.

Although first-quarter performance was decidedly mixed for the country’s largest publicly traded health insurers, three startup “insurtechs” — Oscar Health, Inc., Alignment Healthcare, Inc. and Clover Health Investments Corp. — largely impressed industry analysts with their financial results.

Oscar had a particularly outstanding showing, as the Affordable Care Act marketplace-focused insurer recorded its first quarterly profit since its founding in 2012 (the firm went public in 2021). Its adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA) were $219 million, which was approximately $100 million ahead of the Wall Street consensus estimate. The firm reported diluted earnings per share of 62 cents, compared to an 18-cent loss in the first quarter of 2023.

Ousting CVS Health Corp.’s Aetna from the current roster of Medicaid managed care organizations serving the Kansas Medicaid program, Elevance Health, Inc.’s Healthy Blue was chosen as the third insurer for new KanCare contracts starting Jan. 1, 2025. Incumbents Sunflower Health Plan (Centene Corp.) and UnitedHealthcare Community Plan held onto their spots. The awards mark the latest in a string of wins for Centene and Elevance and another disappointment for Aetna.

According to results posted by the Kansas Dept. of Health and Environment on May 14, seven MCOs responded to the request for proposals (RFP) process that began in October 2023 after a delay. Serving nearly 154,000 enrollees, UnitedHealthcare currently has the biggest share of the Kansas Medicaid market, per AIS’s Directory of Health Plans. Aetna, meanwhile, serves nearly 133,000, or about 31% of KanCare enrollees.

Here’s how major health insurers’ stock performed in April 2024. Elevance Health, Inc. had the highest closing stock price among major commercial insurers as of April 30, 2024, at $528.58. Humana Inc. had the highest closing stock price among major Medicare insurers at $302.09.

During their first-quarter earnings calls, the companies that own the three largest PBMs shared a wealth of details about how the market is responding to their new programs targeting GLP-1 and biosimilar drugs. Wall Street analysts noted that those remarks offered a welcome highlight amid decidedly mixed results in the firms’ health insurance divisions.

The Cigna Group CEO David Cordani opened his prepared remarks during the company’s May 2 earnings call by spotlighting the company’s “focus on biosimilars to drive greater affordability,” calling it one of Cigna’s key strategic growth drivers.