Hartford is the insurance capital of the world, as its boosters like to say, and when it comes to winning health insurance business from larger Connecticut companies, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, led by president and general manager Jill Hummel, stands alone.
Wallingford-based Anthem had just shy of 897,000 Connecticut customers enrolled in its fully and self-insured products as of the latest 2018 data compiled by the Connecticut Insurance Department. That 46% market share is more than its next two biggest competitors — Aetna and Cigna — combined, and it’s largely thanks to Anthem’s dominant status administering self-insured health benefits for “large groups” (companies with 50-plus employees).
Hummel, who co-chairs the Governor’s Prevention Partnership with Gov. Ned Lamont, departed competitor UnitedHealthcare in 2007 to join Anthem, and she assumed her current leadership role in 2014, taking on oversight of sales, account management, provider relations, contracting and underwriting. That same year, Connecticut’s Affordable Care Act exchange, Access Health CT, launched.
Under Hummel, Anthem has built goodwill by remaining loyal to its Access Health products, even as the exchange saw carrier participation dwindle.
Early this year, Hummel bested her old employer in a competitive bid to run a state employee plan covering 210,000 lives. State Comptroller Kevin Lembo cited Anthem’s “willingness to collaborate” as a reason for selecting the company.