Bonuses boost compensation of 10 Highmark executvies.

[Divernan]

Friday, March 17, 2006
Pittsburgh Post Gazette

www.post-gazette.com
(look under Business heading)
The top 10 executives of Highmark Inc., the region's largest health insurer, saw their collective pay increase by 41 percent last year. Dr. Kenneth R. Melani, Highmark's CEO, saw his total compensation jump about 52 percent from less than $1.7 million in 2004 to more than $2.5 million last year. Each of the other nine top employees at Highmark saw increases in total compensation, too, with the collective pay for all 10 increasing from about $8 million in 2004 to more than $11.3 million in 2005.
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The biggest single component of pay during 2005 for Dr. Melani and most of the executives came from bonuses, which reflected Highmark's strong performance during 2004, said Michael Weinstein, a company spokesman.
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"Our executive compensation, we feel, is very reasonable," said Mr. Weinstein, adding that executives at comparably sized for-profit insurance companies make more. Highmark's board of directors has a personnel and compensation committee that hires an outside consultant to compare compensation packages against "like-sized companies, with comparable revenue, in similar industries."


MY NOTE: This last paragraph indicates the extent to which the entire insurance industry is overpaying it's executives and that it can do so indicates how much they inflate the charges for their policies to allow for such obscene profits. The article also notes that total
compensation for Highmark's board of directors increased "slightly" from $838,154 in 2004 to $877,551 in 2005, although the total number of board members increased, too, from 23 to 27.
The only time I've ever served on a Board of Directors it was for a charitable group and we received NO compensation, even for our mileage in attending meetings. We board members considered it giving something back to the community and an act of public service.

[Virginia Dare]

1. But, but....

it's the lawsuits that are causing the premiums to skyrocket!!! Yeah, that's it.

[grilled onions]

2. Reasonable????

When many wage earners can't even afford insurance because minimum wage is stagnant,when others get a paltry 3% while expenses rise double of that, how can they even think about saying this is reasonable??:crazy: