Dive Brief:
- Following months of scrutiny over its nonprofit status, $4.2 billion in reserves, and other financial concerns, Blue Shield of California continues to face questions about its executive compensation.
- CEO Paul Markovich said the company would disclose more information in the future, but specific details regarding past executive pay would remain secret.
- The lack of transparency may not fly with state regulators investigating whether the organization intentionally misled them.
Dive Insight:
Blue Shield of California raised executive pay by $24 million in 2012, amounting to a 64% increase from the previous year, The Los Angeles Times previously reported. What concerns regulators is whether the company excluded some of its pay data from public filings in order to cloak massive sums paid to outgoing execs, including former CEO Bruce Bodaken.
Markovich says the company still won't reveal how the money was distributed as the California insurance department continues to investigate.
"Just to satisfy idle curiosity about what happened in the past about a particular person is not something we will run around to satisfy," Markovich told the Times. "It's not necessary to hold us accountable for living our nonprofit mission."