Plan sponsors have 210 days after the close of the plan year to file their form 5500s.

Ive spent the last few weeks performing market share reviews of the five largest health carriers in the country.

United Healthcare was founded in the 70s, and was recently awarded by J.D. Power and Associates for having the highest employer satisfaction rating. Of course, J.D. Power uses Aetna (and before that, Anthem), but I wont tell anyone.

Kaiser Permanente is the largest managed care company in the United States, dominating nearly every possible measure for market share dominance in the health insurance arena.

Next to Anthem (whos the smallest overall), Cigna actually has the poorest market share on midsize plans but dont count them out, they make money with the big boys.

Last week, we saw a good example of a health insurance carrier, Aetna, that exemplifies the average: typical commissions, straight spread across market sizes, and diverse geographical coverage. This week were going to look at the smallest of the top 5: Anthem.

Last week I took the briefest of looks at the health insurance market and how this controversial empire is carved up amongst the top five power players: Aetna, Anthem, Cigna, Kaiser, and United. Now I want to spend the next few blogs going in depth on these carriers, taking a...

By my best count, there are 1,014 major health insurance carriers in the United States. Just think of the choice that represents more than a thousand different ways to be denied coverage because youre alive and thats technically a pre-existing condition.