UnitedHealth Group 2024 Profits Hit $14 Billion Despite Cyberattack, Rising Costs

UnitedHealth Group reported $14.4 billion in 2024 profits including $5.5 billion in the fourth quarter as its portfolio of health insurance and provider services grew overcome rising medical expenses and an historic cyberattack on its businesses.

The company’s annual net income dropped from more than $22 billion in 2023 thanks to a costly cyberattack on its Change Healthcare business. Meanwhile, the company experiences higher-than-normal costs in its health insurance plans from treating a surging of patients, particularly seniors insured by its Medicare Advantage plans.

UnitedHealth Group, a nationwide provider of medical care services under the Optum umbrella and a company that pays for benefits through its UnitedHealthcare health insurance plans, said 2024 revenue jumped 8% or more than $28 billion, to $$400.3 billion, driven by “serving more people more comprehensively across the enterprise,” the company said Thursday. For the fourth quarter, UnitedHealth reported $5.5 billion in profits as revenue increased to $100 billion from $94.4 billion in the year-ago period.

Thursday’s report on the 2024 annual and fourth-quarter profits at UnitedHealth Group came a month after one of the company’s executives was shot dead on the street in New York City before he was to attend the healthcare giant's annual investors meeting.

On Thursday, UnitedHealth affirmed the 2025 performance outlook established last month that revenues of $450 billion to $455 billion and net earnings of “$28.15 to $28.65 per share, adjusted net earnings of $29.50 to $30.00 per share and cash flow from operations of $32 billion to $33 billion,” the company said.

Aside from the shocking death of the top executive at the company’s health insurance business, Brian Thompson, UnitedHealth endured from one of the nation’s largest cyberattacks on a U.S. company, costing the company’s UnitedHealthcare and Optum businesses more than $2 billion last year.

A cyberattack last February on the company’s Change Healthcare business triggered chaos for physicians and medical care providers across the country, paralyzing Change Healthcare’s massive billing and payment system. The attack triggered a shutdown of parts of Change Healthcare’s electronic system, leaving doctors and other providers of medical care without the ability to get insurance approval of patient services.

Meanwhile, the company, like other health insurers last year, grappled with rising medical costs in its health plans. Thus, UnitedHealth’s earnings report show the company is spending more on medical care as the company’s annual medical care ratio, or MCR, which is the percentage of premium revenue that goes toward medical costs, risises. “The full year medical care ratio was 85.5% compared to 83.2% in 2023,” the company said Tuesday.

At UnitedHealthcare,, in particular, full-year revenue grew 6% to $298.2 billion as the company grew its customers served in its health plans by 2.4 million. Meanwhile, Optum full year revenues grew 26% to $253 billion year over year thanks to its Optum Health medical care provider business and OptumRx, the company’s pharmacy benefit management unit.

“The people of UnitedHealth Group remain focused on making high-quality, affordable health care more available to more people while making the health system easier to navigate for patients and providers, positioning us well for growth in 2025,” Andrew Witty, chief executive officer of UnitedHealth Group said in a statement accompanying Thursday’s earnings report.

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