Close Close
Sign In
Newsletters
Popular Financial Topics Discover relevant content from across the suite of ALM legal publications From the Industry More content from ThinkAdvisor and select sponsors Investment Advisor Issue Gallery Read digital editions of Investment Advisor Magazine Tax Facts Get clear, current, and reliable answers to pressing tax questions
Luminaries Awards
Podcast Center Video Center Webcasts Resource Center Events
About ThinkAdvisor Contact Us Advertise With Us Asset & Logo Licensing Sitemap Terms of Service Privacy Policy Copyright © 2024 ALM Global, LLC. All Rights Reserved.
ThinkAdvisor

Portfolio > Alternative Investments > Private Equity

Private Equity Powers Change At Health Insurer

By Staff Writer

X
Your article was successfully shared with the contacts you provided.

The specialty health insurer formerly known as UICI has taken the name of its best-known subsidiary, HealthMarkets Inc.

Managers, company agents and others recently used private equity from The Blackstone Group L.P., New York, and other firms to take HealthMarkets private.

Managers now are trying to use some of the private equity to relaunch HealthMarkets, North Richland Hills, Texas, as a major player in the personal health account plan market.

HealthMarkets divisions that are part of the original UICI business sell limited-benefit health plans, student health insurance plans and plans for self-employed individuals.

UICI acquired the business that became its HealthMarkets division, HealthMarket Inc., in September 2004.

Stephen Wiggins, the entrepreneur who founded Oxford Health Plans Networks Inc., Trumbull, Conn., founded HealthMarket Inc. in Connecticut in 1999. Wiggins’ company has been a pioneer in efforts to give program members provider-by-provider, procedure-by-procedure price information.

Today, the business Wiggins built sells personal account health coverage programs in 44 states. In 19 states, the company offers Web-based systems that give patients price information for more than 20,000 health care procedures, HealthMarkets says.

The new HealthMarkets will be running print ads in publications such as USA Today, The New York Times, People and Money Inc. and on a variety of Web sites, such as Google and Yahoo!, to emphasize that it has the information that could help solve a crucial problem in the U.S. health finance system.

“One big reason health care costs go up every year far faster than inflation is that the people who pay the bills have no idea how much things cost,” HealthMarkets President William Gedwed says in a statement.

HealthMarkets can cure that lack of transparency by showing plan members how much medical procedures actually cost, the company says.

NOT FOR REPRINT

© 2024 ALM Global, LLC, All Rights Reserved. Request academic re-use from www.copyright.com. All other uses, submit a request to [email protected]. For more information visit Asset & Logo Licensing.