Centene appears to be the first big insurer with an executive who holds the title of president in connection with ICHRA operations.

ICHRAs are a relatively new vehicle that employers can use to provide cash payments that employees can use to buy their own individual major medical coverage.

Related: ICHRAs might be adding to individual health sales: Mark Farrah

Even ICHRA promoters, like David Millar, head of ICHRA product at Gravie, a benefit plan administrator, have said that ICHRA programs need more support from ICHRA-aware health insurers and supplemental product providers.

Sarah London, Centene's chief executive officer, said Centene thinks ICHRAs can make it.

"We believe ICHRA is the future of health care coverage for individuals and families," London said.

Silver started out as an actuary at Willis Towers Watson in 2000 and has spent 24 years working in health and retirement benefits positions there. When he left WTW, he was overseeing retiree medical and ICHRA initiatives.

Centene is a Clayton, Missouri-based health insurer that provides or administers health coverage and stand-alone Medicare drug plan coverage for about 29 million people, including 426,600 people enrolled in employer-sponsored health plans and 4.5 million people with exchange plan coverage.

The company covers about 13 million people through Medicaid plans, 1.1 million people through Medicare Advantage plans and Medicare supplement insurance policies and 6.8 million through Medicare drug plans.

For most of the past decade, health insurers like Centene have competed hard for opportunities in the government plan market. When publicly traded insurers like Centene held quarterly conference calls with securities analysts, most of the analysts' questions were about government plan sales and health care services delivery divisions.

In the past year, however, changing Medicare program rules and reimbursement policies may have started to revive carriers' interest in diversifying by going after commercial market sales.