Cigna 2013 Annual Report Download - page 6

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This marks four consecutive years of overall
growth for Cigna. What is driving this?
I attribute our growth to our emphasis on targeted
customer and client segments, and focus on our
targeted markets.
Four years ago, we made the choice to focus our
organization on the strategy of “Go Deep, Go Global,
Go Individual.” Our “Go” strategy has served as a
foundation for pursuing three goals that have clearly
contributed to our long-term performance: repositioning
our portfolio for growth in target markets; improving
our strategic and financial flexibility; and pursuing new
opportunities in high-growth markets, with a special
emphasis on individuals.
Our strategy puts our customers at the center of all
we do, and guides our organization of approximately
35,000 employees in more than 30 countries.
Can you discuss the Go Global part of your
strategy? What sorts of contributions did
you see from your businesses outside of the
United States?
For Cigna, “Go Global” is about creating borderless
environments to leverage our capabilities in new
geographies. It’s about supporting an expanding, globally
mobile population through our proprietary expatriate
network, which remains the broadest and best-established
in the world.
To mention just a few examples from 2013: Korea continued
its long, sustained track record of growth; we deepened our
partnership in Thailand with Tesco, to oer personal health
and accident insurance; and we got o to a good start in
Turkey with our Cigna Finans joint venture, where we
market life and pension products in one of the fastest-
growing, least-penetrated global insurance markets. We
also celebrated the tenth anniversary of our very successful
venture in China with China Merchants Bank, meeting the
health, life and accident insurance needs of that country’s
growing middle class.
Finally, we launched our venture with TTK in India, where
we’re the first U.S. insurer to be part of a stand-alone joint
venture health insurance company.
Our Global Supplemental business brings valuable health,
life and other solutions to serve the rapidly growing
middle classes in these countries – also consistent with
our “Go” strategy. In 2013, we continued to see examples
of how Cigna’s global presence allowed us to share best
practices among geographies. For instance, we are
leveraging our market-leading, direct-to-consumer sales
capabilities from Asia to the U.S., to be deployed in public
and private exchanges.
Building on that, is Cigna exploring new
geographies or regions?
We will continue our global growth strategy –
particularly our geographic expansion. In the United
States, this means new cities for Medicare and individual
solutions – and, outside of the United States, it means
evaluating opportunities in new countries.
What didn’t go as well as you anticipated in 2013?
The industry experienced uncertainty surrounding
Medicare Advantage reimbursement levels. In the
short term, we expect these pressures will continue even
as we focus on opportunities to improve our medical
costs for our Seniors business.
What’s especially gratifying, even given these pressures
and disruptions, is that we were the only publicly traded
company to achieve a five-star CMS rating – for our
Medicare Advantage business in Florida. We remain
confident that initiatives such as our 2013 acquisition of
Alegis Care, a company focused on physician-based home
health care, further strengthen our Cigna-HealthSpring
Seniors business and physician engagement capabilities –
and that we will continue to create even greater value for
our customers.
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