Mark Kaye, the Elevance chief financial officer, emphasized that the company priced coverage based on the assumption that commercial claims would be high in 2024 and that the assumption was correct.

"Trends were elevated throughout the year," Kaye said. "But, for the most part, they developed exactly in line with what we expected."

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Some of the increase in claims came from outpatient emergency room bills and some from inpatient hospital bills, Kaye said.

But the increased commercial costs "were stable," Kaye said. "And, most importantly, they were priced for."

For 2025, "we really do anticipate commercial cost trends to stay above historical averages," Kaye said. "But, most importantly, this is something that we've expected and we've accounted for in our pricing strategy."

Other company executives "have taken a very disciplined approach between competitiveness and underwriting discipline," Kaye said. "It's a hard market. It's a rational market. We feel very good about our balance of pricing and our forward-looking view of trends."

Earnings: Elevance held the analyst call, which was streamed live on the web, to go over earnings for the fourth quarter of 2024.

The company, which previously was known as Anthem, is reporting $413 million in net income for the latest quarter on $45 billion in revenue, compared with $831 million in net income on $43 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter of 2023.

The company ended the year providing or administering coverage for 46 million people, or 2.3% fewer people than it was covering a year earlier.

The number of workers and dependents with coverage through fully insured group plans, Federal Employee Health Benefits Program plans and self-insured employer health plans administered by Elevance increased 1.2%, to 26 million.

Enrollment in the Elevance portion of the BlueCard program, which lets both group and individual coverage insureds use Blue Cross and Blue Shield plan coverage in the service areas of all participating Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans, fell 1.1%, to 6.6 million.

A recording of the call is available on the Elevance website.