Cigna executives give disability unit some love

Executives at Cigna Corp. (NYSE:CI) did not mention the topic of health insurance exchanges during the company’s earnings call for the fourth quarter of 2012.

Instead, the executives emphasized that Cigna is focusing on health insurance markets outside the United States and government plan programs inside the United States.

The executives also had kind words for the company’s disability and life unit.

When an analyst asked whether Cigna would consider selling the unit, David Cordani, Cigna’s president, said the disability insurance business has beeen a “very well-performing block of business for us.”

“These current market conditions are challenging for that line of business,” Cordani said.

The “low-wage growth environment, the unemployment environment and the sustained low interest rate environment” have all caused problems for the unit lately, Cordani said.

“We recognize that it is not growing,” Cordani said.

But, even today, “we’ve been able to deliver very good value propositions for our clients and customers,” Cordani said. “We continue to be very pleased with the business.”

Cigna believes disability insurance revenue and profits will start increasing at an attractive rate in the intermediate term, Cordani said.

Earnings

Cigna as a whole  is reporting $406 million in net income for the latest quarter on $7.6 billion in revenue, up from $273 million in net income on $5.4 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2011.

The company ended the quarter providing or administering health coverage for 14 million people, up 11 percent from the total recorded a year earlier.

But the company provided insured coverage for only 1.9 million people in the United States, about as many as it was insuring a year earlier.