Cigna Gives $110.9 Million Compensation Package To Ex-CEO

The insurance giant Cigna last year gave compensation packages worth more than $120 million to two executives who left the company, according to a filing with the SEC on Friday.

The vast majority of that total went to former chairman and CEO H. Edward Hanway who left his post with a retirement package worth $110.9 million -- which included $18.8 million in executive compensation for 2009, as well as a healthy pension plan, deferred compensation and stock options.

With more than $19 billion in revenues reported in 2008, Cigna remains one of the most profitable insurers in the country. Though, unlike some of its competitors, it does not appear to have raised premiums on customers in an effort to improve somewhat sagging recent profits.

The company is part of America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which has lobbied heavily against health care reform. In drumming up opposition, the industry group has warned that reform legislation will adversely affect the market as a whole and Cigna's bottom line in particular.

Hanway's retirement package is sure to provide fodder to reform proponents, who insist that too much money and resources are wasted on the excesses of the private insurance industry -- often at the expense of consumers.

In addition to Hanway, former Cigna Executive Vice President and CFO Michael Bell received a $10.9 million executive compensation package in 2009. Bell left the company abruptly that year -- no reason was given for his departure.

Cigna's current president and CEO, David M. Cordani, earned a salary of more than $6.5 million in 2009, according to the SEC filing.

Comments

[fedupinfla]

02:47 AM on 03/31/2010

Notice how the right wong trolls can't wait to come to the defense of St Sarah, Bush, Beck & all the other freaks of natures the mouth breathers adore, yet there isn't 1 single one posting here defending this kind of blatant corporate greed???

Where are you tea-baggers?!? Why aren't you here lecturing us about how this is capitalism at its finest? That THIS kind of "free market" competition is what makes our country so great?!? That all we have to do is work harder & we too can pocket $110 MILLION bucks.

C'mon!! I dare you to try to spin this!

[Guitarsandmore]

08:33 AM on 03/23/2010

A Harvard study estimates 45,000 - 100,000 deaths annually due to no health insurance or under-insurance.

Taxing the CEOs of all major health care providers just 10% would produce enough revenue to provide comprehensive health care insurance to 65,000 people.

[disprovit]

06:32 AM on 03/23/2010

America! where a man dies from lack of insurance while another man gets $110 million bonus for making it impossible for him to obtain one.

[omalley313]

08:52 AM on 03/23/2010

well said :(

[falco]

07:16 PM on 03/22/2010

Edward Hanway - now on the board of directors of Marsh & McLennan who were investigated and charged in a kick-back scheme involving Hank Greenberg's son Jeffrey. The illustrious Paul Bremer is part of the company, you remember him, Ambassador to Iraq when several trillion went missing. And this is just a tip of the "who's-on-the-board of these health insurance companies. Same players, different company. Revolving door of criminals, now they get our tax dollars for health care. Bankers in disguise.

[Shake-A-Spear]

05:43 PM on 03/22/2010

Jack Welch formely to guy at GE was another of these overpaid bastards who was raking in all sorts of money and perks even in retirement -- as if he ha\dn't been well compensated during all the years of his active employment.

The only way the public found out about the company's largesse that was not required to be made public after Welch's retirement was via a lawsuit brought by his ex-wife during divorce proceedings

I wonder how many other ex corproate bigwigs are being paid into the hereafter without stockholderrs being told about it -- as was the case with Welch before the divorce forced disclosure.

[Lt]

04:46 PM on 03/22/2010

support HR 4789

medi care for everyone

the bill is in the congress

[Kevin Atlanta]

12:39 PM on 03/22/2010

How many people died to create that pay-out?
Pigs one and all.
A STRONG PUBLIC OPTION NOW!

[worldview47]

04:44 PM on 03/22/2010

This is why you have to fight for a Public Option.

[FaceReality2]

11:24 AM on 03/22/2010

How many policies did Cigna rescind after people got sick in order to make these profits? How many claims for treatments that their policy holders' doctors prescribed were denied? How many people with some pre-existing condition like an allergy or asthma were denied coverage to make these profits? How many Americans died to make these profits possible?

[Sigger]

12:14 PM on 03/22/2010

And as a Cigna policy holder, I had the privilege to involuntarily contribute to his payoff that is the equivalent to the annual income of a family of four for over 2,444 years. How much does a corporate manager have to have before before it reaches the insanity level? We can certainly say it was reached in this case. The Cigna Board of Directors should be sued for financial mismanagement as there is no way they can legitimately justify this kind of corporate financial waste.

[FaceReality2]

01:53 PM on 03/22/2010

Your only course of action is to vote in new directors--fat chance. Shareholder democracy is for all practical purposes a myth. Unfortunately, their decision to pay this money is protected under the business judgment rule.

[Sharon1951]

11:16 AM on 03/22/2010

Well, I guess that's why they needed my relative's $900.00 monthly disability payment -- and why they cut her off arbitrarily more than $100,000. short of her contract payout. Now it all makes sense.

[humanbeing-rick]

10:44 AM on 03/22/2010

No man is worth that kind of money! This is just simple, arrogant cronyism, stealing from the till.
All investors and workers and their families lose, while these socio-paths steal more money than they could ever spend in a lifetime. Pure greed and gluttony, an affront to any American working at current wage levels.

[SpongeBrad]

10:20 AM on 03/22/2010

B.l.o.od. M.o.n.e.y

[An Independent Woman]

10:07 AM on 03/22/2010

Why does someone earning in excess of 18 million a year need a pension? He/she should really learn how to budget! Sigh....

[phread]

09:59 AM on 03/22/2010

I don't wish to sound like a left wing crazy...but we are witnessing American Fascism...the co-habitation of business and government working together to increase corporate profits and nationalize corporate losses thereby reducing risk...

[FaceReality2]

11:28 AM on 03/22/2010

Not crazy at all. To the contrary, a keen insight.

"Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a
merger of State and corporate power." Benito Mussolini

[terramartom]

09:56 AM on 03/22/2010

Karma has a way of balancing things out.
Perhaps food poisoning will be his demise, or 4 days Viagra overkill?

[murgatroyd]

07:34 AM on 03/22/2010

More obscene than porn! This, along with the insurance companies' failed lobbying efforts are big factors in your premium increases. Talk about entitlements....These people should be hanging their heads in shame.....and remanding 90%.