How much did the CEOs of the 7 largest private health insurers get paid last year?
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Executive summary
The seven largest publicly traded U.S. health insurers’ chief executives earned roughly $146 million in combined total compensation in 2024, according to multiple industry analyses of companies’ SEC proxy filings and related reporting [1] [2]. Different outlets and choices about which firms are counted produce slightly different aggregates — figures reported range from about $146 million to higher totals when alternative firm lists or timeframes are used [3] [4].
1. What the headline number is and why it clusters near $146 million
An AIS Health / MMIT compilation of SEC proxy statements found the CEOs of the seven major national insurers — UnitedHealth Group, Cigna, Molina Healthcare, Centene, Elevance Health, CVS Health and Humana — earned a combined $145,996,812 in 2024; that figure is echoed by other reporters who rounded to $146.1 million [1] [2]. The same set of filings is the underlying source for many subsequent articles and newsletters, because public companies must disclose total CEO pay in their annual proxy statements filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission [5].
2. Who the seven CEOs are and sample individual pay figures reported
Industry reporting lists the major payers and provides individual tallies: UnitedHealth’s CEO Andrew Witty was the highest-paid among payer CEOs with $26.3 million in total compensation in 2024, according to Becker’s and S&P analyses [4] [6]. Cigna’s David Cordani is reported at about $23.2 million while Centene’s CEO Sarah London had a roughly $20.6 million package — S&P notes much of those sums come from stock grants and incentive pay [6]. Multiple outlets report that most large payer CEOs earned in the high seven-figure to low eight-figure range, which is consistent with earlier surveys showing top insurer CEOs commonly receive between roughly $13 million and $26 million in a given year [7] [4].
3. Why different outlets report different totals
Discrepancies among reported totals stem from definitional choices and timing: some analyses count six “major national plans” while others count seven; some include parent companies with broader business lines (like CVS Health, which owns Aetna) while others restrict to stand‑alone health-plan businesses [3] [1]. Reporters also differ on whether to use one-year pay figures from the latest proxy, multi-year averages, or to include deferred and realized equity payouts, which can expand or shrink totals [5] [8].
4. Context — pay mix, increases and industry patterns
Compensation at top insurers is increasingly weighted toward at‑risk pay (stock awards, options, and performance incentives) rather than cash salary, a pattern documented in industry surveys showing long‑term incentives dominate larger organizations’ pay mixes and that base salaries rose modestly (about 7.3% on average in one 2024 survey) [8]. Modern Healthcare and other outlets observed that some CEOs’ pay ticked up in 2024 (UnitedHealth, Cigna, Centene, Molina) while others fell (CVS, Humana, Elevance), reflecting company performance and one‑off grant timing [9].
5. Alternate viewpoints and what the numbers don’t say
Advocates and critics use these figures to argue that CEO pay is disconnected from consumer pain — citing record industry profits alongside rising premiums and access barriers — while companies and governance supporters point to compensation as performance- and retention‑based for leaders of global firms [2] [10]. Reporting should be read with caution: public filings disclose “total compensation” by SEC rules, but differences in equity valuation methods, grant timing and whether an analyst includes affiliated company payouts create legitimate ambiguity about a single “correct” aggregate [5] [1].
6. Reporting limits and the bottom line
Existing public-source analyses converge: the seven largest private health‑insurer CEOs took home a combined sum just under $146 million in 2024 based on proxy filings compiled by AIS Health and repeated by other outlets; individual CEOs’ pay ranged roughly from the low teens to the mid‑$20 millions, with UnitedHealth’s Andrew Witty at the top of most lists in 2024 at about $26.3 million [1] [4] [6]. Where reporting differs, it reflects transparent methodological choices rather than undisclosed data, and those choices should be examined when comparing headlines [3] [8].