Health insurer Anthem has named Brian Griffin, former president of Anthem's New York health plan, president of Anthem's overall commercial and specialty business. He starts Tuesday.
In his role, Griffin, 56, will oversee Anthem's largest business line and report to CEO Joseph Swedish. The commercial and specialty segment includes Anthem's fully insured individual exchange, small-group and large-group employer health plans, as well as administrative services for self-insured employers.
Roughly 29.8 million people have health coverage in Anthem's commercial segment, which is about 77% of Anthem's total medical membership. The commercially insured business will be even bigger if Anthem's proposed $54.2 billion takeover of Cigna Corp. moves forward.
Anthem's commercial and specialty business recorded $39.2 billion of revenue in 2014, and revenue has been on the decline for the past several years. Anthem has struggled to retain the business of fully insured employers. In addition, more companies are becoming self-insured, which means they bear the financial risk of covering their employees' health claims and then outsource the claims processing and network management to Anthem. Those administrative contracts are less lucrative for insurers.
However, Anthem's commercial products are still highly profitable. The segment posted an 8.3% operating margin in 2014, while Anthem's Medicare and Medicaid products had a 3.5% margin.
Since early 2014, Griffin has served as president of Empire Blue Cross and Blue Shield, an Anthem subsidiary and the largest health insurer in New York. He's been a healthcare executive for more than 30 years.
Griffin replaces Ken Goulet, who is retiring. Griffin is in line for a big payday if his compensation tracks with Goulet's. Goulet earned almost $5 million in 2014 and raked in more than $14.1 million over the past three years. Goulet is also due to receive millions more from unvested stock options.
