Health insurer 2nd-quarter profits receive boost from lower-than-expected claims

Health insurer 2Q profits boosted by past quarters

The biggest publicly-traded health insurers all saw sizable gains in their second-quarter net income in part because claims from previous quarters came in lower than they expected.

Insurers say the flu season was milder than anticipated, and the swine flu outbreak largely faded after stirring some fear last fall. Here’s the earnings of the five largest health insurers followed by their gains, in parentheses, due to lower-than-expected claims from previous quarters.

— UnitedHealth Group Inc.: $1.12 billion profit ($270 million gain)

— WellPoint Inc.: $722 million profit ($100 million gain)

— Aetna Inc.: $491 million profit ($127.6 million gain)

— Humana Inc.: $340.1 million profit ($117 million gain)

— Cigna Corp.: $294 million ($40 million gain)

Source: Company filings