President of WellPoint’s Anthem Blue in California Leaves Post

Leslie Margolin, the president of Anthem Blue Cross in California, has left the company.

Mark Morgan, vice president of small group sales, was named acting president on an interim basis, effective immediately, Anthem Blue Cross said in a statement.

The exit comes less than three months after the health plan withdrew its request to raise premiums by up to 39% on members in its individual health plans after state regulators found "substantial errors" in its rate filing. "This had nothing to do with the California rate filings," said Jon Mills, a spokesman for the Indiana-based WellPoint (NYSE: WLP), parent company of Anthem Blue Cross.

In April, Anthem Blue Cross withdrew its request to raise premiums on the individual health plan members. California Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner had sent its rate filing to an outside actuary for review.

Anthem Blue at the time said it will use "updated and real-time medical utilization information" and address its miscalculations "related to the way in which we estimated our future medical costs in our initial filings" (BestWire, April 30, 2010).

Margolin joined Anthem in February 2008, and replaced Brian A. Sassi, who WellPoint, at that time, tapped as president and chief executive officer of its consumer business unit (BestWire, Jan. 10, 2008).

She previously served as senior vice president for health plan and hospital operations for the nonprofit Kaiser Permanente. Before Kaiser, she was president of Cigna's (NYSE: CI) HealthCare of California unit, general manager of Cigna's southern California operations and, for 10 years, was a member of Cigna's legal department.

Anthem Blue Cross said Morgan has led the development of sales and distribution strategies for its small group business since 2008. Before joining the company, he held several leadership roles in sales, operations and product development at Blue Shield of California and Health Net.

In June, the California insurance department said Aetna withdrew its rate filing, which would have raised premiums by an average of 19% on 65,000 policyholders in its individual health plans. That also came after "substantial mathematical errors" were found during an additional actuarial review (BestWire, June 25, 2010).

Anthem BC Life and Health Insurance Co., a member of WellPoint Health Networks Group, currently has a Best's Financial Strength Rating of A (Excellent).

(By Fran Matso Lysiak, senior associate editor, BestWeek: fran.lysiak@ambest.com)