Excellus reports net income of $58 million in 2015

Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, Central New York’s largest health insurer, reported net income of $58 million on $5.9 billion in premium revenue during 2015.

The figures were disclosed in an annual financial report that the Rochester–based insurer filed Tuesday with the New York State Department of Financial Services, Excellus said in a news release issued Wednesday.

The $58 million net-income figure is more than double Excellus’s net income of $24 million during 2014. The 2014 figure resulted from “stronger-than-expected” investment income. Excellus that year also reported an operating loss of $55 million, which it attributed primarily to losses in its Medicaid Managed Care line of business.

The 2015 net-income figure includes an operating gain of 0.4 percent, or $23 million. Excellus generated $19 in operating gains per member.

The health plan in 2015 paid out more than $5.1 billion in medical-benefit claims. Excluding $111.6 million that the federal government imposed on the firm through its health-insurer tax, medical-benefit payments totaled about 88 percent of premium revenue.

In total, Excellus said it paid $449 million in state and federal taxes.

The company puts its net income into the health plan’s reserves to “protect” against higher-than-expected claims expenses or lower-than-anticipated revenues in the future, Excellus said.

Health-plan reserves amount to $1.1 billion, or $843 per insured member.

Excluding Excellus, other nonprofit health plans in upstate New York reported an average of $1,264 in reserves per member as of Sept. 30, 2015.

Excellus is the largest division of its parent company, Rochester–based Lifetime Healthcare Companies.

Excellus’ Central New York headquarters is in DeWitt.

The health insurer in September 2015 announced the FBI was investigating a breach, which may have impacted information about 10 million Excellus and Lifetime Healthcare customers.

The cyberattack hit Excellus’ information-technology systems. The company learned of the breach on Aug. 5, but the initial attack occurred on Dec. 23, 2013, Excellus said.

Contact Reinhardt at ereinhardt@cnybj.com