David Klein, the former CEO of Excellus Blue Cross Blue Shield received a retirement payout of $12.8 million. That information is contained in a recent financial filing that the HMO registered with the state.
Klein retired at the end of 2012. His payout follows a retirement payment the previous year to former Excellus Financial Officer Zeke Duda, who received $10.9 million.
Randall Clark, chairman of the board for the Lifetime Healthcare Companies, Inc., which is the parent company of Excellus BlueCross BlueShield, released a statement, which says in part:
"Compensation paid to the former chief executive officer, who served in an executive capacity for our company and the BlueCross BlueShield system for four decades, reflects multi-year employment and performance agreements made by the board that followed the executive compensation process and industry norms at the time the agreements were made. The payment included an employment service agreement that binds the former CEO to a non-compete clause, which has value to our company’s future. As industry norms have changed, we have applied more current market practices to compensation and benefits that are less generous to our new executive leadership team."
Excellus says that its operating margin and administrative expenses were about $50 million less in 2013 than in 2012.
In terms of other news about Excellus' financial results for 2013, the organization says it posted net income of $53 million, or .8 percent last year. The net income goes into the health plan's reserves to help protect members from higher than expected claims expenses or lower than anticipated revenues.
