Companies Beef up Security after UnitedHealthcare CEO Shooting Backlash

Minneapolis, MN (WorkersCompensation.com) – UnitedHealth Group is laying out security plans for its executives and employees in the wake of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson’s shooting.

The backlash online from users who are sharing their insurance stories is prompting other companies to take the same precautionary steps, officials said.

Thompson was shot several times on Wednesday morning as he was preparing to attend an investor meeting in New York city. Officials said the gunman laid in wait for Thompson and followed him after he crossed the street to enter the Hilton Midtown around 7 a.m. Video surveillance showed the gunman walking behind Thompson and shooting him once in the leg before clearing a jam in his gun and then shooting him two or three more times.

The gunman fled the scene and is thought to have left New York City, officials said on Friday. However, law enforcement investigating the shooting said that shell casings left behind had the words “deny” and “delay” written on them, a nod investigators think to insurance maxims of “deny, delay and defend” when it comes to insurance claims.

Those words written on the bullets have sent the internet into an uproar with patients and others providing tales of the challenges they’ve faced dealing with UnitedHealthcare, as well as other health insurance providers.

Some online commenters have called for violence against other insurance company CEOs and employees.

Andrew Witty, CEO of UnitedHealth Group, told employees the company was looking out for its employees, even as it cooperates with law enforcement in the manhunt for its executive’s killer.

“We’re ensuring the safety, security and wellbeing of our employees,” said Witty said in an email sent to employees on Thursday, according to CNN. “ and obtained by CNN. “We have increased security at our campuses in Minnesota, in addition to sites in Washington, D.C., and New York City areas.”

Witty said the company is putting several support systems in place to ensure employee safety, including a ban on visitors on the administrative campuses through the end of the week.

Other companies have removed their executives’ photos from their websites, 404 Media reported. Insurance companies UnitedHealth Group, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, Humana and Anthem have removed the names, photos and other information of leadership, the online news agency said. The report found that CVS has also removed information about its executives from its website, as well.

Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield made changes to its website after receiving pushback on a policy change that would have charged patients for anesthesia during procedures that went longer than it deemed necessary. The company walked back that policy, but removed the leadership page and referred online visitors to an “About Us” page instead.

Humana removed its CEO page and information about its board of directors, the report found, while Aetna removed its leadership page altogether. CVS pulled photos of its executives. Park Nicollet Health Service also removed a photo and information about Thompson’s wife, Paulette Thompson. CareSource, a nonprofit health insurance organization took down pages for its executive leadership, while Medica, another nonprofit healthcare firm, temporarily closed its Minnesota offices “out of an abundance of caution,” the Associated Press reported.

Firms specializing in executive protection say they have seen an uptick in the number of calls they’ve received from companies looking to protect their executives.

“It’s a wakeup call for a lot of companies,” Glen Kucera, the New York-based president of Enhanced Protection Services, an arm of security company Allied Universal, to Bloomberg. “Unfortunately, it sometimes takes an event like this to impact change in the threat landscape.”

“These decisions [made by insurers] can impact the quality of life or even life and death,” said Enhanced Protection’s Kucera.

Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, a corporate security provider in Washington, D.C., said threats against health insurers have been rising in recent years. Insurance, especially when a company denies a claim or denies medical treatment, is a business that can “create enemies at scale,” he said.

While the internet makes it easier for corporations to see how consumers feel, it also makes it easier for people to trace corporate executive, officials said.

To combat that, corporations spend millions on corporate security. According to filings with the federal securities commissions, UnitedHealth Group’s CEO Witty is required to use the company’s jet for all business travel, and is encouraged to do the same for his personal travel. Officials said those kinds of policies are common at publicly traded companies where firms would rather have their top executives travel on a corporate aircraft than have them wait in airport waiting areas where security is harder to control.

In many cases, executives at publicly traded companies get company paid home security systems as well. In Minneapolis, Target pays for the home security system of CEO Brian Cornell, although it doesn’t disclose in securities filings how much that system costs. Bancorp released in its filings that it paid $7,215 in home security expenses in 2023 for its CEO Andrew Cecere. For Minneapolis-based Ameriprise Financial, CEO Jim Cracchiolo, who works primarily in New York City, the company paid $61, 450 for home security in 2023, and $23,368 for Cracchiolo’s use of a car and driver.

Global Guardian’s Buckner said that as of Thursday, Dec. 5, his company had received 70 requests for personal protection services from companies. Normally, he said, the company gets about 150 to 175 requests per month.

“In two days, we got about a half a month’s worth of demand,” he said.

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