(Yahoo! Finance) - Health insurance stocks remain under pressure five days after the fatal shooting of UnitedHealthcare (UNH) CEO Brian Thompson, marking a volatile period for the sector as it awaits a transition into the Trump administration.
UnitedHealth Group is trading down by nearly 10% over the past five days, while Aetna (CVS) traded down 8%, and Cigna (CI) is down more than 6% in the same period. Even smaller players like Oscar Health (OSCR) were hit, down nearly 12% in the past five days.
Companies have taken down profile pages and headshots of their executive teams and are more closely scrutinizing security details for them.
Meanwhile, all of corporate America is still reeling from the Dec. 4 shooting, as the gunman remains at large. However, a man identified as Luigi Mangione is being questioned in connection with the shooting as of Monday, according to reports.
Oscar Health CEO Mark Bertolini told Yahoo Finance that while there is always extra security at the offices, moving around will now be a concern.
The former Aetna CEO also said he understands the responses from the general public, which have lacked sympathy for Thompson's death and as digital sleuths haven't been as helpful to the New York Police Department as expected, according to reports.
"While the act in itself is unconscionable, the behavior of the American public, and reaction to it, is understandable given how frustrated people are at the state of our healthcare system in the United States," Bertolini said.
The shooting was "a wake-up call for the industry," he said.
The industry has known for years that patients and clinicians are frustrated with the system that allows denials of claims in healthcare, which has been suggested as a motive for the killing. Shell casings of the bullets found at the scene read, "deny, defend, depose," in permanent marker — describing tactics used by health insurers to deny claims, which contributes to their profits.
Bertolini said the reason for the public's frustration is that the US is operating a healthcare system that was built 80 years ago, after World War II, when employer benefits were needed to help support veterans' return to the workforce.
"I think that system is largely, now, broken, and it has been broken for some time," Bertolini said.
Violence on the rise
Violence against workers in the healthcare system has been growing amid a lack of change to the broken system as more Americans feel the pain of rising health costs and denied coverage of their health needs. But the violence has been confined to healthcare facilities — and rose 70% between 2006 and 2020. The shooting marks the first time an executive of a company has been openly attacked in such a brazen manner.
Glen Kucera, president of security company Allied Universal’s Enhanced Protection Services, told Yahoo Finance that Allied has seen a 40% rise in protection needs in the health space in recent months, but more in hospitals where clinicians face threats more often.
"We have had a lot of additional resources deployed at healthcare facilities in the last 12 to 14 months. And now this specific example is an insurance company ... that's not quite as common as the physical facilities," he said.
Which is why the shooter's identity and motive are important to uncover and the unsolved crime remains a concern, he added.
"If it's a claimant or patient, then I think that's going to put the healthcare industry on notice that this could happen to them," Kucera said.
While Oscar's stock is recovering a bit Monday, up about 4% at the start of the session at more than $16 per share, big insurers are all either flat or just under 1% in the red Monday.
Mizuho's healthcare sector expert Jared Holz said in a note to clients Monday that the volatility is set to continue — especially as the sector faces ongoing uncertainty under President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration.
"Investors do believe that the events impacting UNH last week could play a role in how the Insurance stocks perform over the near term and obviously there has been plenty of volatility around UNH and the peer group in the aftermath of the UNH analyst day," Holz wrote.
By Anjalee Khemlani - Senior Reporter
