UnitedHealth beats profit expectations in first earnings report since health insurance CEO’s killing

UnitedHealth Group beat estimates for fourth quarter profit as the Eden Prairie-based health care giant released its first earnings report since the fatal ambush last month of top executive Brian Thompson in New York City.

During the fourth quarter, the company posted a profit of $5.54 billion on $100.8 billion in revenue.

Excluding one-time items, adjusted earnings per share of $6.81 was 7 cents better than expected among analysts surveyed by LSEG Data and Analytics.

That beat happened even as revenue trailed expectations for the quarter. Analysts were expecting revenue of $101.7 billion.

The financial details came as UnitedHealth Group’s insurance business UnitedHealthcare and the broader industry continue to confront questions and anger over the nation’s health care system that surged in the wake of Thompson’s killing, particularly on social media.

Last week, a group representing faith-based shareholders petitioned UnitedHealth Group to develop a report on the human and economic toll stemming from limits and delays to accessing health care paid for by insurance subsidiary UnitedHealthcare.

Thompson was CEO of UnitedHealth’s insurance business. The company has not yet named an interim successor.

UnitedHealth says critics have spread misinformation about its track record denying health insurance claims.

“The people of UnitedHealth Group remain focused on making high-quality, affordable health care more available to more people while making the health system easier to navigate for patients and providers, positioning us well for growth in 2025,” said Andrew Witty, the company’s chief executive officer, in a news release.

UnitedHealth Group runs the UnitedHealthcare insurance business, as well as Optum, a large division for health care services including outpatient medical care and pharmacy benefits management.

Thompson was killed while walking to UnitedHealth Group’s annual investor conference.

At the meeting, company officials had started to discuss their newly issued financial guidance for 2025 when word of the shooting started to spread. UnitedHealth Group says it’s expecting an adjusted profit of about $27.1 billion to $27.7 billion on revenue of $450 billion to $455 billion.

UnitedHealth Group on Thursday affirmed the outlook, which Witty last month said was more cautious than normal due in part to pressure in the company’s large Medicare Advantage business.

The fourth quarter results released Thursday were better than year-ago quarterly earnings of $5.46 billion on $94.4 billion in revenue.

UnitedHealth Group is one of the largest companies in the country, with about 400,000 workers overall, including about 19,000 in Minnesota.

At the end of December, about 49.3 million people in the U.S. had coverage from UnitedHealthcare, up slightly from the total at the end of September.

The company said Optum was serving about 100 million consumers during the fourth quarter.

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