Just a few days ago, I was watching my 10-month-old grandson. He and I were cuddled up on the sofa watching one of his three favorite movies (I think it was “Winnie the Pooh” this time), and he was hilarious. Giggling and smiling and burying his head into my shoulder at the same time. Right then, I had a flashback to my own childhood.
My dad was a big, tough man. When he left the Army, he went straight into the oilfield and worked there for over 40 years. But when he was home, and we were little, we could climb all over him and he would just laugh and laugh.
When I started going out in the boat with him, hunting and fishing, leaving before dawn, I was only 5 years old. I can remember it like it was yesterday: the open boat going 30 miles an hour while it was still dark in the wintertime, he would cover me up and make me lay down in the bottom of the boat to stay warm. Any time I would sit up and peek where we were going, I could never see a THING! It was like he had X-ray vision or something. And during those times, while Dad was in charge, I felt 100% totally safe. I never doubted for a moment that we would get where we were going safely and get home just as safely. He just radiated that kind of comfort and competence.
Our Commitment to Earning–and Keeping–Your Trust
Here at Louisiana Blue, our goal is always to build that kind of trust with you, our customers and fellow Louisianians. We’ve been at this for 90 years now, and you continually trust us with billions of your hard-earned treasure every year. In return, we make sure that money is available to pay for your healthcare needs, care you often could never afford to pay for out of your own pocket. That’s our reason for existence.
Part of building that trust is our desire to be as transparent as we can with where all your money goes. You can rest assured that we are 100% in compliance with federal law, which states exactly how much of the money we take in can be used ONLY for our customers’ medical care and how much we can use to run our business. In the healthcare world, only insurance companies have federally capped gross margins, and only insurance companies have to guarantee a percentage of your payments go to nothing but care. In most years, that number hovers right around 85% of your money going directly to pay for medical services, and the other 15% to cover all the overhead of running our business (like taxes, fees, compliance costs, regional offices, salaries, commissions and IT improvements).
2023 Rebates
Last year was no exception. In fact, in a few lines of business, our medical claims came in LOWER than we expected. Because of that, we’ve identified almost $28 million that some of our members, in certain individual products and group products, will be getting back in the form of a rebate.
It’s simple really. We estimated 2023 healthcare expenses for all of our members and set rates. Expenses came in a little better in some areas than we expected (worse in others), but the net effect is a rebate back to certain members and employer sponsors of plans. You can trust that we are watching this spending VERY closely and that we talk and think every day about ways to keep your insurance more affordable.
The Straight Talk is, after 90 years and reams of federal rules we have to follow, your Louisiana Blue has not lost sight of the good stewardship it requires to build value for you and earn your trust. We had a better year in claims on some products than we expected, and some of that money is coming back to those members. It’s the least we can do, to build that trust and confidence from us to you.
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