10 Largest Health Insurance Companies In America

Most of the 10 largest health insurance companies in America are publicly-traded and have registered solid returns over the past five years. The US health insurance industry is one of the largest in the world with almost 84% of Americans being covered by at least some kind of public or private health insurance. While a majority of Americans obtain insurance through their employers a large part of Americans receive health coverage through a public health insurance program. Medicare, Medicaid and military health insurance accounts for a majority of the public health coverage.

Employer-sponsored health insurance is paid by companies on behalf of their employees as part of an employee benefit package. The U.S. Census Bureau estimates that more than 60% Americans receive private health insurance through employers. The employer generally contributes about 85% of the insurance premium for their employees while the employee has to pony up the rest. The advantage of an employer insurance plan is that group insurance leads to lower costs due to economies of scale.

While all major US corporations still give health insurance to their workers, this trend has reversed over the last decade. The main reason is the rising costs of healthcare which has risen much faster than overall wages and inflation. The 10 largest health insurance companies in America have managed to keep growing revenues due to industry consolidation. You might also want to know about 11 biggest insurance companies in the world.

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The US health insurance market is controlled by large health insurance companies after a wave of consolidation took place in the industry leading to over 400 mergers and acquisitions. According to the American Medical Insurance, the largest insurer controls at least 30% of the market in 90% of markets. This oligopoly like structure gives a lot of pricing power to the insurers as the companies/individuals have limited choice. As the U.S. population becomes older, demand for healthcare insurance is only going to increase. There is also a lot of uncertainty regarding how healthcare industry will look like with Donald Trump looking to overturn the Affordable Care Act (ACA) of 2010 which had been championed by Barack Obama. We have listed down the the 10 largest health insurance companies in America based on their 2015 revenues.