Thursday, January 16, 2025

UnitedHealth Corp. ($UNH) filed its Q4 and full-year 2024 earnings release today. The release did not discuss the Dec. 4 murder of Brian Thompson, chief executive officer of the company’s single largest operating unit — so Calcbench extends our condolences to Thompson’s loved ones, and will otherwise follow the company’s lead and focus on its recent financial performance.

Figure 1, below, shows UnitedHealth’s total revenue for the last eight quarters. As one can see, revenue in 2024 was up appreciably from 2023. 



Figure 2 shows that quarterly revenue broken down by business unit. To little surprise, insurance premiums accounted for the solid majority of all company revenue. 



That’s how the money is coming in. Figure 3, below, shows how it’s going out: UnitedHealth operating expenses for the last eight quarters. Again to little surprise, most of UnitedHealth’s costs go toward paying medical claims. 



Lastly, we wanted to understand medical costs as a portion of revenue. Figure 4 shows that for the last eight quarters that number has stayed within a narrow band, accounting for roughly two-thirds of all revenue every quarter for the last two years. 



The Calcbench research team pulled together all these charts in less than 10 minutes, using the Export Data Tables feature we discussed in a post earlier this week. That feature is available to all Calcbench users, to dig up precise, comprehensive, segment-level data with just a few keystrokes.
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