Business
Humana CEO is betting on culture change and AI to fuel a turnaround
Good morning. It’s been a tough year for Humana, the health-insurance giant that primarily serves seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans. On Nov. 5, Humana reported a drop in net income to $1.62 a share, from $3.98 a share the year prior, and lowered its full-year earnings guidance. But CEO Jim Rechtin came to the role last year with a mission to transform Humana’s relationship with customers. “We are not where we want to be, and we’ve been very public,” he told me. “We feel very good about the trajectory that we’re on for next year.”
Here are some of his priorities, excerpted from our conversation:
Culture Change: I don’t want to pretend that there aren’t obstacles, but they are obstacles of history, the cultural biases that we bring to every conversation. We recently rolled out a new portal for the annual enrollment process. What we have never done before is say: “Let’s rapidly prototype one in 30 days, trial it with a bunch of real consumers, get feedback, modify the next 30 days, get feedback again and so on.” We would have typically come up with a six-month plan to build something, with no input from the people who are going to use it and then find out that we didn’t build it quite right.
Customer Experience: We are streamlining the prior authorization process to make it less cumbersome, both for providers and consumers … We predominantly serve seniors. They’re absolutely digitally engaged. Sometimes we get caught up in the bias that they’re not. This year we rolled out an event called the Cognitive Games, (games) like Bejeweled and Wordle. In the first week, we engaged a few hundred thousand people, so we knew we’d built something that they wanted. We’re out where consumers are, building a relationship with them. We’re not managing a payment transaction in the shadows.
Leveraging AI: Let me give you examples. We are rolling out ambient listening technology that takes the administrative burden of being a doctor off our doctors and allows them to spend more time with the patient. We have a new tool that we just rolled out for our brokers and sales agents that we refer to as Agent Assist that allows them to streamline a very complicated sales process.
For the full Q&A, click here.
Contact CEO Daily via Diane Brady at diane.brady@fortune.com
Top news
Dems vote to end shutdown
Senate Democrats on Sunday broke their own party’s blockade in an effort to end the record-long government shutdown, with eight lawmakers voting with Republicans to advance a measure that would fund the government through January. The action prompted backlash from other Democrats who are outraged that their colleagues retreated from the party’s primary demand in the stalemate: extending health care insurance subsidies.
Air travel concerns grow as Thanksgiving nears
Transportation Secretary Sean Duffy predicted on Sunday that air travel will be “reduced to a trickle” for Thanksgiving if the government shutdown continues. Meanwhile, American Airlines CEO Robert Isom told CNBC on Friday that “nobody wants to put up with [the] hassle” of booking air travel as the shutdown looms.
Trump’s $2,000 tariff ‘dividend’
President Donald Trump this weekend suggested that all Americans could receive a $2,000 “dividend” funded by the revenue his tariffs are generating. Trump offered no details for this plan. Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent said the dividend could come by way of the tax cuts included in Trump’s signature economic policy passed earlier this year.
Diageo’s new boss
Drinks company Diageo has named Dave Lewis, former Tesco boss and Unilever alum, as its new CEO. The struggling maker of Guinness and Johnnie Walker has been hunting for a new chief executive since July. Its shares, previously at a 10-year low, popped on the news.
Unlikely pair behind Pfizer’s $10B deal
Pfizer on Friday said it will pay more than $10 billion to acquire Metsera, a company with eight potential weight-loss drugs. The deal is a second major sale for Metsera founders Whit Bernard, a 41-year-old music nerd, and Clive Meanwell, a 68-year-old cancer researcher, who sold an earlier startup to Novartis for $10 billion.
Introducing the 50-year mortgage
Federal Housing Finance Agency Director Bill Pulte confirmed in a statement on social media that the Trump Administration is developing a 50-year mortgage to help make homeownership more affordable. 30-year fixed rates have remained over 6% for more than three years.
The Boring Company fined $500,000
Elon Musk’s tunneling business The Boring Company was fined nearly $500,000 for dropping “drilling fluids” into manholes around Las Vegas. A notice of violation from the county environmental regulator, which sued the company, claims the dumping caused “substantial damage” to the county’s infrastructure.
The markets
S&P 500 futures are up 1% this morning. The last session closed up 0.13%. STOXX Europe 600 was up 1.39% in early trading. The U.K.’s FTSE 100 was up 1.01% in early trading. Japan’s Nikkei 225 was up 1.26%. China’s CSI 300 was up 0.35%. The South Korea KOSPI was up 3.02%. India’s NIFTY 50 is up 0.32%. Bitcoin was up to $106K.
Around the watercooler
CEO Daily is compiled and edited by Joey Abrams and Claire Zillman.
