Aetna Cuts Selling Expenses

Aetna Inc. spent a less on paying and supporting insurance agents and other insurance distributors in the fourth quarter of 2017.

The company’s selling expense amount for health insurance fell to $363 million in the latest quarter, down 8.1% from the amount for the fourth quarter of 2016.

The selling expense amount for group life insurance, group disability insurance and other non-major-medical group products fell 71%, to $11 million.

The overall selling expense total fell 14%, to $374 million.

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The Hartford, Connecticut-based company included those figures in a financial update it filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. A copy of the update is available here.

Aetna is reporting $254 million in net income for the latest quarter on $15 billion in revenue, compared with $128 million in net income on $16 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2016.

The company ended the year providing or administering health coverage for 22 million people, down from 23 million a year earlier.

• Commercial, insured: Fell to 4.5 million, from 5.6 million

• Commercial, self-insured: Increased to 13.6 million, from 13.1 million

• Medicare Advantage: Increased to 1.5 million, from 1.4 million

• Medicare supplement insurance: Increased to 740,000, from 685,000

• Medicaid: Fell to 1.9 million, from 2.5 million

Aetna did not break out enrollment numbers for fully insured individual and small-group coverage, but it said the number of enrollees with those types of coverage was down.

Restructuring Costs

Spending on employee severance pay and other restructuring costs fell to $60 million in the latest quarter, from $404 million in the year-earlier quarter.

(Photo: Douglas Healey/AP)

Aetna says the restructuring costs recorded for the latest quarter are the result of “expense management and cost control initiatives.”