Item 1. BUSINESS.

General

We are one of the largest health benefits companies in the United States in terms of medical membership, serving approximately 40 million medical members through our affiliated health plans as of December 31, 2018. We are an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, or BCBSA, an association of independent health benefit plans. We serve our members as the Blue Cross licensee for California and as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield, or BCBS, licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (in the New York City metropolitan area and upstate New York), Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.) and Wisconsin. In a majority of these service areas, we do business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia, and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield or Empire Blue Cross. We also conduct business through arrangements with other BCBS licensees in Louisiana, South Carolina and western New York. Through our subsidiaries, we also serve customers in over 25 states across the country as America’s 1st Choice, Amerigroup, Aspire Health, CareMore, Freedom Health, HealthLink, HealthSun, Optimum HealthCare, Simply Healthcare, and/or UniCare. We are licensed to conduct insurance operations in all 50 states and the District of Columbia through our subsidiaries.

On February 15, 2018, we completed our acquisition of Freedom Health, Inc., Optimum HealthCare, Inc., America’s 1st Choice of South Carolina, Inc. and related entities, or collectively, America’s 1st Choice, a Medicare Advantage organization that offers health maintenance organization, or HMO, products, including Chronic Special Needs Plans and Dual-Eligible Special Needs Plans under its Freedom Health and Optimum HealthCare brands in Florida and its America’s 1st Choice of South Carolina brand in South Carolina. At the time of acquisition, through its Medicare Advantage Plans, America’s 1st Choice served approximately one hundred and thirty-five thousand members in 25 Florida and 3 South Carolina counties. This acquisition aligned with our plans for continued growth in the Medicare Advantage and Special Needs populations.

In October 2017, we established a new pharmacy benefits manager, or PBM, called IngenioRx, and entered into a five-year agreement with CaremarkPCS Health, L.L.C., or CVS Health, which is a subsidiary of CVS Health Corporation, to begin offering PBM solutions (the “CVS PBM Agreement”), which coincides with the conclusion of our current PBM agreement with Express Scripts, Inc. or Express Scripts, (the “ESI PBM Agreement”). In January 2019, we exercised our contractual right to terminate the ESI PBM Agreement earlier than the original expiration date of December 31, 2019 due to the recent acquisition of Express Scripts by Cigna Corporation, or Cigna. As a result of exercising our early termination right, the ESI PBM Agreement will now terminate on March 1, 2019, and the twelve-month transition period to migrate the business begins on March 2, 2019. At that time CVS Health is able to begin providing certain PBM services to IngenioRx pursuant to the CVS PBM Agreement. Notwithstanding our termination of the ESI PBM Agreement, the litigation between us and Express Scripts regarding the ESI PBM Agreement continues. In March 2016, we filed a lawsuit against Express Scripts seeking to recover damages for pharmacy pricing that is higher than competitive benchmark pricing and damages related to operational breaches. Express Scripts filed an answer to the lawsuit disputing our contractual claims and alleging various defenses and counterclaims. For additional information regarding this lawsuit, see Note 13, “Commitments and Contingencies - Litigation and Regulatory Proceedings - Express Scripts, Inc. Pharmacy Benefit Management Litigation,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

In May 2017, we announced that we were terminating the Agreement and Plan of Merger, or Cigna Merger Agreement, between us and Cigna. Both we and Cigna have commenced litigation against the other seeking various actions and damages, including Cigna’s damage claim for a $1.850 billion termination fee pursuant to the terms of the Cigna Merger Agreement. For additional information about the ongoing litigation related to the Cigna Merger Agreement, see Note 13, “Commitments and Contingencies - Litigation and Regulatory Proceedings - Cigna Corporation Merger Litigation,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

-3-

At Anthem, we believe in working together to achieve our mission of improving lives and communities, simplifying healthcare and expecting more. As we seek to accomplish these goals through a collaborative focus on execution and delivering for those we serve, our vision is to be the most innovative, valuable and inclusive health partner. We focus on ensuring quality products and services that give members access to the care they need. With an unyielding commitment to meeting the needs of our diverse customers, we are guided by the following values:

• Leadership – Redefine what is possible

• Community – Committed, connected, invested

• Integrity – Do the right thing, with a spirit of excellence

• Agility – Delivery today, transform tomorrow

• Diversity – Open your hearts and minds

By striving to live our values each day and in every interaction, we are committed to simplifying as well as radically reinventing the healthcare experience for all Americans.

We offer a broad spectrum of network-based managed care plans to Large Group, Small Group, Individual, Medicaid and Medicare markets. Our managed care plans include: Preferred Provider Organizations, or PPOs; HMOs; Point-of-Service, or POS, plans; traditional indemnity plans and other hybrid plans, including Consumer-Driven Health Plans, or CDHPs; and hospital only and limited benefit products. In addition, we provide a broad array of managed care services to self-funded customers, including claims processing, stop loss insurance, actuarial services, provider network access, medical cost management, disease management, wellness programs and other administrative services. We provide an array of specialty and other insurance products and services such as dental, vision, life and disability insurance benefits, radiology benefit management and analytics-driven personal healthcare. We also provide services to the federal government in connection with the Federal Employee Program®, or FEP®.

The increased focus on healthcare costs by employers, the government and consumers has continued to drive the growth of alternatives to traditional indemnity health insurance. HMO, PPO and hybrid plans are among the various forms of managed care products that have been developed. Through these types of products, insurers attempt to contain the cost of healthcare by negotiating contracts with hospitals, physicians and other providers to deliver high-quality healthcare to members at favorable rates. These products usually feature medical management and other quality and cost optimization measures such as pre-admission review and approval for certain non-emergency services, pre-authorization of outpatient surgical procedures, network credentialing to determine that network physicians and hospitals have the required certifications and expertise, and various levels of care management programs to help members better understand and navigate the healthcare system. In addition, providers may have incentives to achieve certain quality measures, may share medical cost risk or may have other incentives to deliver quality medical services in a cost-effective manner. Also, certain plans offer members incentives for healthy behaviors, such as smoking cessation and weight management. Members are charged periodic, prepaid premiums and generally pay co-payments, coinsurance and/or deductibles when they receive services. While the distinctions between the various types of plans have lessened over recent years, PPO, POS and CDHP products generally provide reduced benefits for out-of-network services, while traditional HMO products generally provide little to no reimbursement for non-emergency out-of-network utilization, but often offer more generous benefit coverage. An HMO plan may also require members to select one of the network primary care physicians, or PCPs, to coordinate their care and approve any specialist or other services.

Economic factors, greater consumer and employer sophistication and accountability have resulted in an increased demand for choice in both product/benefit designs and provider network configurations. As a result we continue to offer our broad access PPO networks with multiple benefit designs, but are also focused on leveraging our provider collaboration initiatives with our Accountable Care Organization, or ACO, partnerships to develop both narrow and tiered network offerings. This array of network and product configurations allows both the employer and the employee to design and select the combination of benefit designs (e.g., traditional PPOs, high deductibles, health reimbursement accounts, health savings accounts, PCP based products, tiered copays) and networks (e.g., broad, narrow, tiered, closed or exclusive provider, and open) that optimize choice, quality and price at the consumer, employer and market level. We believe we are well-positioned in each of our states to respond to these market preferences.

-4-

For our fully-insured products, we charge a premium and assume the risk for the cost of covered healthcare services. Under self-funded products, we charge a fee for services and the employer or plan sponsor reimburses us for the healthcare costs. In addition, we charge a premium to underwrite stop loss insurance for Local Group and National Account employers that maintain self-funded health plans.

Our medical membership includes seven different customer types: Local Group, Individual, National Accounts, BlueCard®, Medicare, Medicaid and FEP®. BCBS-branded business generally refers to members in our service areas licensed by the BCBSA. Non-BCBS-branded business refers to members in our non-BCBS-branded America’s 1st Choice, Amerigroup, CareMore, HealthSun, and Simply Healthcare plans, as well as HealthLink and UniCare members. In addition to the above medical membership, we also serve customers who purchase one or more of our other products or services that are often ancillary to our health business.

Our products are generally developed and marketed with an emphasis on the differing needs of our customers. In particular, our product development and marketing efforts take into account the differing characteristics between the various customers served by us, as well as the unique needs of educational and public entities, labor groups, federal employee health and benefit programs, national employers and state-run programs servicing low-income, high-risk and underserved markets. Overall, we seek to establish pricing and product designs to provide value for our customers while achieving an appropriate level of profitability for each of our customer categories balanced with the competitive objective to grow market share. We believe that one of the keys to our success has been our focus on these distinct customer types, which better enables us to develop benefit plans and services that meet our customers’ unique needs.

We market our products through direct marketing activities and an extensive network of independent agents, brokers and retail partnerships for Individual and Medicare customers, and for certain Local Group customers with a smaller employee base. Products for National Accounts and Local Group customers with a larger employee base are generally sold through independent brokers or consultants retained by the customer and working with industry specialists from our in-house sales force. In the Individual and Small Group markets, we offer on-exchange products through state- or federally-facilitated marketplaces, referred to as public exchanges, and off-exchange products. Federal subsidies are available for certain members, subject to income and family size, who purchase public exchange products.

Being a licensee of the BCBS association of companies, of which there were 36 independent primary licensees as of December 31, 2018, provides significant market value, especially when competing for very large multi-state employer groups. For example, each BCBS member company is able to utilize other BCBS licensees’ substantial provider networks and discounts when any BCBS member works or travels outside of the state in which their policy is written. This program is referred to as BlueCard® and is a source of revenue when we provide member services in the states where we are the BCBS licensee to individuals who are customers of BCBS plans not affiliated with us. This program also provides a national provider network for our members when they travel to other states.

For additional information describing each of our customer types, detailed marketing efforts and changes in medical membership over the last three years, see “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included in Part II, Item 7 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Our results of operations depend in large part on accurately predicting healthcare costs and our ability to manage future healthcare costs through adequate product pricing, medical management, product design and negotiation of favorable provider contracts.

Advances in medical technology, increases in specialty drug costs, increases in hospital expenditures and other provider costs, the aging of the population and other demographic characteristics continue to contribute to rising healthcare costs. Our managed care plans and products are designed to encourage providers and members to participate in quality, cost-effective health benefit programs by using the full range of our innovative medical management services, quality initiatives and financial incentives. Our market share and high business retention rates enable us to realize the long-term benefits of investing in preventive and early detection programs. Our ability to provide cost-effective health benefits products and services is enhanced through a disciplined approach to internal cost containment, prudent management of our risk exposure and successful integration of acquired businesses. In addition, our ability to manage selling, general and administrative costs continues to be a driver of our overall profitability.

-5-

The future results of our operations will also be impacted by certain external forces and resulting changes in our business model and strategy. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, as amended, or collectively, the ACA, has changed and may continue to make broad-based changes to the U.S. healthcare system. The ACA presented us with new growth opportunities, but also introduced new risks, regulatory challenges and uncertainties, and required changes in the way products are designed, underwritten, priced, distributed and administered. Changes to our business environment are likely to continue for the next several years as elected officials at the national and state levels continue to propose and enact significant modifications to existing laws and regulations, including the reduction of the individual mandate penalty to zero effective January 1, 2019, elimination of funding for cost-sharing subsidies made available for qualified individuals, and changes to taxes and fees. In addition, the legal challenges regarding the ACA, including the December 2018 decision of the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, Fort Worth Division invalidating the ACA (the “2018 Texas District Court ACA Decision”), which judgment has been stayed pending appeal, continue to contribute to this uncertainty. We will continue to evaluate the impact of the ACA as additional guidance is made available and any further developments or judicial rulings occur. For additional discussion, see “Regulation,” herein and Part I, Item 1A “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

In addition to the external forces discussed in the preceding paragraph, our results of operations are impacted by levels and mix of membership which can change as a result of the quality and pricing of our health benefits products and services, economic conditions, changes in unemployment, acquisitions, entry into new markets and expansions in or exits from existing markets. Our reduced participation in the Individual ACA-compliant market in 2018 led to a decrease in our fully-insured membership which was partially offset by an increase in our self-funded membership. We believe the self-funded portion of our group membership base will continue to increase as a percentage of total group membership. These membership trends could be negatively impacted by various factors that could have a material adverse effect on our future results of operations such as general economic downturns that result in business failures, failure to obtain new customers or retain existing customers, premium increases, benefit changes or our exit from a specific market. See Part I, Item 1A “Risk Factors” and Part II, Item 7 “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Private exchanges have gained visibility in the market based on the promise of helping employers reduce costs, increase consumer engagement and manage the complexities created by the ACA and other market forces. While private exchanges have been a distribution channel in the Medicare and Individual markets for some time, in more recent years the Commercial market has received an increased level of attention from the consulting and broker communities as well as health insurance carriers. In response, we have continued our broad-based strategy of offering our own private exchange, Anthem Health Marketplace, a consumer experience platform, to groups, while also participating in four large national consultant-led exchanges, several regional broker-led exchanges and various Individual, Commercial and Medicare exchanges. To date, adoption levels in the Commercial market overall have been lower than analyst predictions. While the ultimate volume, pace of growth and winning business models remain highly uncertain in this space, we continue to believe we are well positioned to adapt with the market as it evolves.

During 2018, we strategically reduced our participation in the Individual ACA-compliant market. Our strategy has been, and will continue to be, to only participate in rating regions where we have an appropriate level of confidence that these markets are on a path toward sustainability, including, but not limited to, factors such as expected financial performance, regulatory environment, and underlying market characteristics. We currently offer Individual ACA-compliant products in 73 of the 143 rating regions in which we operate.

We believe healthcare is local and that we have the strong local presence required to understand and meet local customer needs. Further, we believe we are well-positioned to deliver what customers want: innovative, choice-based and affordable products; distinctive service; simplified transactions; and better access to information for quality care. Our local presence, combined with our national expertise, has created opportunities for collaborative programs that reward physicians and hospitals for clinical quality and excellence. We feel that our commitment to health improvement and care management provides added value to customers and healthcare professionals. Ultimately, we believe that practical and sustainable improvements in healthcare must focus on improving healthcare quality while managing costs for total affordability. We have implemented initiatives driving payment innovation and partnering with providers to lower cost and improve the quality of healthcare for our members and we continue to develop new and innovative ways to effectively manage risk and engage our members. In addition, we are focused on achieving efficiencies from our national scale while optimizing service performance for our customers. Finally, we expect to continue to rationalize our portfolio of businesses and products and align our

-6-

investments to capitalize on new opportunities to drive growth in our existing markets and expand into new markets in the future.

We continue to enhance interactions with customers, providers, brokers, agents, employees and other stakeholders through web-enabled technology and improving internal operations. Our approach includes not only sales and distribution of health benefits products on the Internet, but also implementing advanced capabilities that improve services benefiting customers, agents, brokers, and providers while optimizing administrative costs. These enhancements can also help improve the quality, coordination and safety of healthcare through increased communications between patients and their physicians.

In pursuing our vision of being the most innovative, valuable and inclusive partner, we intend to transform healthcare by providing trusted and caring solutions and delivering quality products and services that give customers access to the care they need. At the same time, we will focus on earnings, organic membership growth, improvements in our operating cost structure, strategic acquisitions and the efficient use of capital.

Significant Transactions

The significant transactions that have occurred over the last five years that have impacted or will impact our capital structure or that have influenced or will influence how we conduct our business operations include:

•	Acquisition of America’s 1st Choice (2018);

•	Acquisition of HealthSun Health Plans, Inc., or HealthSun (2017);

•	Acquisition of Simply Healthcare Holdings, Inc., or Simply Healthcare (2015);

•	Use of Capital—Board of Directors declarations of dividends on our common stock (2013 through January 2019); repurchases of our common stock (2019 and prior); and debt repurchases and new debt issuances (2018 and prior); and

•	Divestiture of 1-800 CONTACTS, Inc. (2014).

For additional information regarding certain of these transactions, see Note 3, “Business Acquisitions,” Note 12, “Debt,” and Note 14, “Capital Stock,” to our audited consolidated financial statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Competition

The managed care industry is highly competitive, both nationally and in our local markets. Competition continues to be intense due to aggressive marketing and pricing, business consolidations, new competitors in the market, a proliferation of new products, the impact of the ACA, and increased quality awareness and price sensitivity among customers.

We believe that participants in the managed care industry compete for customers based on quality of service, price, access to provider networks, access to care management and wellness programs (including health information), innovation, breadth and flexibility of products and benefits, reputation (including National Committee on Quality Assurance, or NCQA, accreditation status), brand recognition and financial stability. Our ability to attract and retain customers is substantially tied to our ability to distinguish ourselves from our competitors in these areas.

Also, a health plan’s ability to interact with employers, customers and other third parties (including healthcare professionals) through electronic data transfer has become a more important competitive factor, and we have made significant investments in technology to enhance our electronic interaction with providers, employers, customers and third parties.

We believe our exclusive right to market products under the most recognized brand in the industry, BCBS, in our most significant markets provides us with greater brand recognition over competitive product offerings. Our provider networks in our markets enable us to achieve efficiencies and distinctive service levels by allowing us to offer a broad range of health benefits to our customers on a more cost-effective basis than many of our competitors. We strive to distinguish our products through provider access, service, care management, product value and brand recognition.

-7-

Product pricing remains competitive and we strive to price our healthcare benefit products consistent with anticipated underlying medical trends. We believe our pricing strategy, based on predictive modeling, proprietary research and data-driven processes has positioned us to benefit from the potential growth opportunities available through entry into new markets, expansions in existing markets and as a result of any subsequent changes to the current regulatory scheme. We believe that our pricing strategy, brand name and network quality will provide a strong foundation for membership growth opportunities in the future.

To build our provider networks, we compete with other health benefits plans for the best contracts with hospitals, physicians and other providers. We believe that physicians and other providers primarily consider customer volume, reimbursement rates, timeliness of reimbursement and administrative service capabilities along with the reduction of non-value added administrative tasks when deciding whether to contract with a health benefits plan.

At the sales and distribution level, we compete for qualified agents and brokers to recommend and distribute our products. Strong competition exists among insurance companies and health benefits plans for agents and brokers with demonstrated ability to secure new business and maintain existing accounts. We believe that the quality and price of our products, support services, reputation and prior relationships, along with a reasonable commission structure are the factors agents and brokers consider in choosing whether to market our products. We believe that we have good relationships with our agents and brokers, and that our products, support services and commission structure compare favorably to those of our competitors in all of our markets. Typically, we are the largest competitor in each of our BCBS branded markets and, thus, are a closely-watched target by other insurance competitors.

Reportable Segments

We manage our operations through three reportable segments: Commercial & Specialty Business, Government Business and Other. We regularly evaluate the appropriateness of our reportable segments, particularly in light of organizational changes, merger and acquisition activity and changing laws and regulations. During the fourth quarter of 2018, we reclassified certain ancillary businesses to align how our segments are currently being managed. Prior year amounts have been reclassified for comparability. Current reportable segments may change in the future.

Our Commercial & Specialty Business and Government Business segments both offer a diversified mix of managed care products, including PPOs, HMOs, traditional indemnity benefits and POS plans, as well as a variety of hybrid benefit plans including CDHPs, hospital only and limited benefit products.

Our Commercial & Specialty Business segment includes our Local Group, National Accounts, Individual and Specialty businesses. Business units in the Commercial & Specialty Business segment offer fully-insured health products; provide a broad array of managed care services to self-funded customers including claims processing, underwriting, stop loss insurance, actuarial services, provider network access, medical cost management, disease management, wellness programs and other administrative services; and provide an array of specialty and other insurance products and services such as dental, vision, life and disability insurance benefits.

Our Government Business segment includes our Medicare and Medicaid businesses, National Government Services, or NGS, and services provided to the federal government in connection with FEP®. Medicaid makes federal matching funds available to all states for the delivery of healthcare benefits to eligible individuals, principally those with incomes below specified levels who meet other state-specified requirements. Medicaid is structured to allow each state to establish its own eligibility standards, benefits package, payment rates and program administration under broad federal guidelines. Our Medicare customers are Medicare-eligible individual members age 65 and over who have enrolled in Medicare Advantage, a managed care alternative for the Medicare program, or who have purchased Medicare Supplement benefit coverage, some disabled members under age 65, or members of all ages with end stage renal disease. Medicare Supplement policies are sold to Medicare recipients as supplements to the benefits they receive from the Medicare program. Rates are filed with, and in some cases approved by, state insurance departments. Most of the premium for Medicare Advantage is paid directly by the federal government on behalf of the participant who may also be charged a small premium. Additionally, through our alliance partnership engagements with larger provider groups and BCBS plans, we offer a variety of Medicaid services that include joint ventures, administrative service offerings, and full-risk arrangements. NGS acts as a Medicare contractor for the federal government in several regions across the nation.

-8-

Our Other segment includes certain eliminations and corporate expenses not allocated to either of our other reportable segments.

Through our participation in various federal government programs, we generated approximately 19.8%, 17.8% and 18.2% of our total consolidated revenues from agencies of the U.S. government for the years ended December 31, 2018, 2017 and 2016, respectively. These revenues are contained in the Government Business segment. An immaterial amount of our total consolidated revenues is derived from activities outside of the U.S.

Products and Services

A general description of our products and services is provided below:

Preferred Provider Organization: PPO products offer the member an option to select any healthcare provider, with benefits reimbursed by us at a higher level when care is received from a participating network provider. Increasingly, customers are choosing our PPO products offered with an exclusive provider organization which eliminates coverage out of network. Coverage is subject to co-payments or deductibles and coinsurance, with member cost sharing usually limited by out-of-pocket maximums.

Consumer-Driven Health Plans: CDHPs provide consumers with increased financial responsibility, choice and control regarding how their healthcare dollars are spent. Generally, CDHPs combine a high-deductible PPO plan with an employer-funded and/or employee-funded personal care account, which may result in tax benefits to the employee. Some or all of the dollars remaining in the personal care account at year-end can be rolled over to the next year for future healthcare needs.

Traditional Indemnity: Indemnity products offer the member an option to select any healthcare provider for covered services. Coverage is subject to deductibles and coinsurance, with member cost sharing usually limited by out-of-pocket maximums.

Health Maintenance Organization: HMO products include comprehensive managed care benefits, generally through a participating network of physicians, hospitals and other providers. A member in one of our HMOs must typically select a PCP from our network. PCPs generally are family practitioners, internists or pediatricians who provide necessary preventive and primary medical care, and are generally responsible for coordinating other necessary healthcare services. We offer HMO plans with varying levels of co-payments, which result in different levels of premium rates.

Point-of-Service: POS products blend the characteristics of HMO, PPO and indemnity plans. Members can have comprehensive HMO-style benefits through participating network providers with minimum out-of-pocket expenses (co-payments) and also can go directly, without a referral, to any provider they choose, subject to, among other things, certain deductibles and coinsurance. Member cost sharing is limited by out-of-pocket maximums.

ACA Public Exchange and Off-Exchange Products: The ACA required the modification of existing products and development of new products to meet the requirements of the legislation, subject to certain transitional relief. Individual and Small Group products cover essential health benefits as defined in the ACA along with many other requirements and cost sharing features. Individual and Small Group products offered on and off the public exchanges meet the definition of the “metal” product requirements (bronze, silver, gold and platinum) and each metal product must satisfy a specific actuarial value. Health insurers participating on the public exchanges must offer at least one silver and one gold product.

Administrative Services: In addition to fully-insured products, we provide administrative services to Large Group, Small Group and National Account employers that maintain self-funded health plans. These administrative services include underwriting, actuarial services, medical cost management, disease management, wellness programs, claims processing and other administrative services for self-funded employers. Self-funded health plans are also able to use our provider networks and to realize savings through our negotiated provider arrangements, while allowing employers the ability to design certain health benefit plans in accordance with their own requirements and objectives. We also underwrite stop loss insurance for self-funded plans.

BlueCard®: BlueCard® is a national program that links participating healthcare providers and independent BCBS plans. BlueCard® host members are generally members who reside in or travel to a state in which an Anthem subsidiary is the Blue Cross and/or Blue Shield licensee and who are covered under an employer sponsored health plan serviced by a non-Anthem controlled BCBS licensee, which is the “home” plan. We perform certain administrative functions for BlueCard®

-9-

host members, for which we receive administrative fees from the BlueCard® members’ home plans. Other administrative functions, including maintenance of enrollment information and customer service, are performed by the home plan.

Medicare Plans: We offer a wide variety of plans, products and options to individuals age 65 and older such as Medicare Supplement plans; Medicare Advantage, including Special Needs Plans; Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans, or Medicare Part D; and dual-eligible programs through Medicare-Medicaid Plans, or MMPs. Medicare Supplement plans typically pay the difference between healthcare costs incurred by a beneficiary and amounts paid by Medicare. Medicare Advantage plans provide Medicare beneficiaries with a managed care alternative to traditional Medicare and often include a Medicare Part D benefit. In addition, our Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans provide tailored benefits to Medicare beneficiaries who have chronic diseases and also cover certain dual-eligible customers, who are low-income seniors and persons under age 65 with disabilities. Medicare Part D offers a prescription drug plan to Medicare and MMP beneficiaries. MMP is a demonstration program focused on serving members who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare, which was established as a result of the passage of the ACA. We offer these plans to customers through our health benefit subsidiaries throughout the country, including America’s 1st Choice, Amerigroup, CareMore, HealthSun and Simply Healthcare.

Individual Plans: We offer a full range of health insurance plans with a variety of options and deductibles for individuals who are not covered by employer-sponsored coverage and are not eligible for government sponsored plans, such as Medicare and/or Medicaid. Individual policies are generally sold through independent agents and brokers, retail partnerships, our in-house sales force or via the exchanges. Individual business is sold on a fully-insured basis. We offer on-exchange products through public exchanges and off-exchange products. Federal premium subsidies are available only for certain public exchange Individual products. Unsubsidized Individual customers are generally more sensitive to product pricing and, to a lesser extent, the configuration of the network and the efficiency of administration. Instability in the Individual market has resulted in a targeted approach where we offer products in select geographies.

Medicaid Plans and Other State-Sponsored Programs: We have contracts to serve members enrolled in publicly funded healthcare programs, including Medicaid; ACA-related Medicaid expansion programs; Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF; programs for seniors and people with disabilities, or SPD; Children’s Health Insurance Programs, or CHIP; and specialty programs such as those focused on long-term services and support, or LTSS, HIV/AIDS, children living in foster care, behavioral health and/or substance abuse disorders, and intellectual disabilities and/or developmental disabilities, or ID/DD programs. The Medicaid program makes federal matching funds available to all states for the delivery of healthcare benefits for low income and/or high medical risk individuals. These programs are managed by the individual states based on broad federal guidelines. TANF is a state and federally funded program designed for the population consisting primarily of low-income children and their guardians. SPD is a federal income supplement program designed for Supplemental Security Income recipients; however, states can broaden eligibility criteria. This population consists of low-income seniors and people with disabilities. CHIP is a state and federally funded program that provides healthcare coverage to children not otherwise covered by Medicaid or other insurance programs. LTSS is a state and federally funded program that offers states a broad and flexible set of program design options and refers to the delivery of long-term services and support for our members who receive home and community- or institution-based services for long-term care. Our HIV/AIDS program is a state and federally sponsored program that provides services to those living with HIV/AIDS. Our Foster Care program is a state and federally sponsored program serving children with complex needs within the foster care system. Our Behavioral Health program is a state and federally sponsored program providing services to those with mental health and/or substance abuse disorders. ID/DD is a state and federally sponsored program serving those living with limitations in intellectual functioning and adaptive behavior learning disabilities. Our Medicaid plans also cover certain dual-eligible customers, as previously described above, who also receive Medicare benefits. We provide Medicaid and other state sponsored services, such as administrative services, in Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Washington D.C.

Pharmacy Products: We market and sell an integrated prescription drug product to both fully-insured and self-funded customers through our health benefit subsidiaries throughout the country. This comprehensive product includes features such as drug formularies, a pharmacy network, prescription drug database and mail order capabilities. Since December 1, 2009, we have delegated certain functions and administrative services related to our integrated prescription drug products to Express Scripts under a ten-year contract, excluding our HealthSun and America’s 1st Choice subsidiaries, our CareMore operations in the state of Arizona and certain self-insured members who have exclusive agreements with different PBM service

-10-

providers. Express Scripts manages the network of pharmacy providers, operates mail order pharmacies and processes prescription drug claims on our behalf, while we sell and support the product for clients, make formulary decisions, set drug benefit design strategy and provide front line member support. In October 2017, we established a new PBM, called IngenioRx, and entered into a five-year agreement with CVS Health to begin offering PBM solutions upon the conclusion of the current ESI PBM Agreement. As part of the CVS PBM Agreement, and consistent with our strong reputation as a leader in healthcare delivery, we will drive clinical and formulary strategy and development, member and employer experiences, operations, sales, marketing, account management, and retail network strategy. We will delegate certain administrative services, including claims processing and prescription fulfillment, to CVS Health. Our current ESI PBM Agreement will terminate on March 1, 2019, and the twelve-month transition provided for in the ESI PBM Agreement to migrate the services begins on March 2, 2019. At that time CVS Health is able to begin providing certain PBM services to IngenioRx. Notwithstanding our termination of the ESI PBM Agreement, the litigation between us and Express Scripts regarding the ESI PBM Agreement continues. In March 2016, we filed a lawsuit against Express Scripts seeking to recover damages for pharmacy pricing that is higher than competitive benchmark pricing. For additional information, see Note 13, “Commitments and Contingencies - Litigation and Regulatory Proceedings - Express Scripts, Inc. Pharmacy Benefit Management Litigation,” of the Notes to Consolidated Financial Statements included in Part II, Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Life Insurance: We offer an array of competitive individual and group life insurance benefit products to both Large Group and Small Group customers in conjunction with our health plans. The life products include term life and accidental death and dismemberment.

Disability: We offer short-term and long-term disability products, usually in conjunction with our health plans.

Radiology Benefit Management: We offer outpatient diagnostic imaging management services to health plans which promote the most appropriate use of clinical services to improve the quality of care delivered to members. These services include utilization management for advanced diagnostic imaging procedures, network development and optimization, patient safety, claims adjudication and provider payment.

Personal Health Care Guidance: We offer evidence-based and analytics-driven personal healthcare guidance. These services help improve the quality, coordination and safety of healthcare, enhance communications between patients and their physicians, and reduce medical costs.

Dental: Our dental plans include networks in certain states in which we operate. Many of the dental benefits are provided to customers enrolled in our health plans and are offered on both a fully-insured and self-funded basis. Our members also have access to additional dental providers through our participation in the National Dental GRID, a national dental network developed by and for BCBS plans. The National Dental GRID includes dentists in all 50 states and the District of Columbia and provides multi-state customers with a national solution providing in-network discounts across the country. Additionally, we offer managed dental services to other healthcare plans to assist those plans in providing dental benefits to their customers.

Vision Services and Products: Our vision plans include networks within the states in which we operate. Many of the vision benefits are provided to customers enrolled in our health plans and are offered on both a fully-insured and self-funded basis.

Medicare Administrative Operations: Through our subsidiary, NGS, we serve as a fiscal intermediary, carrier and Medicare administrative contractor for the federal government providing administrative services for the Medicare program, Parts A and B, which generally provides coverage for persons who are 65 or older and for persons who are under 65 and disabled or with end-stage renal disease. Part A of the Medicare program provides coverage for services provided by hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and other healthcare facilities. Part B of the Medicare program provides coverage for services provided by physicians, physical and occupational therapists and other professional providers, as well as certain durable medical equipment and medical supplies.

Networks and Provider Relations

Our relationships with physicians, hospitals and professionals that render healthcare services to our members are guided by local, regional and national standards for network development, reimbursement and contract methodologies. While

-11-

following industry standards, we are simultaneously seeking to lead transformation efforts within our healthcare system, moving from a fragmented model premised on episodic intervention to one based on proactive, coordinated care built around the needs of the patient. A key element of this transformation involves a transition from traditional fee-for-service payment models to models where providers are paid based on the value, both in quality and affordability, of the care they deliver.

We establish “market-based” hospital reimbursement payments that we believe are fair, but aggressive, and among the most competitive in the market. We also seek to ensure that physicians in our network are paid in a timely manner at appropriate rates. In many instances, we deploy multi-year contracting strategies, including case rates or fixed rates, to limit our exposure to medical cost inflation and to increase cost predictability. We maintain both broad and narrow provider networks to ensure member choice, based on both price and access needs, while implementing programs designed to improve the quality of care our members receive. Increasingly, we are supplementing our broad-based networks with smaller or more cost-effective networks that are designed to be attractive to a more price-sensitive customer segment, such as public exchange customers.

Our reimbursement strategies vary across markets and depend on the degree of consolidation and integration of physician groups and hospitals. Under a fee-for-service reimbursement methodology for physicians, fee schedules are developed at the state level based on an assessment of several factors and conditions, including the CMS resource-based relative value system, or RBRVS, medical practice cost inflation and physician supply. We utilize CMS RBRVS fee schedules as a reference point for fee schedule development and analysis. The RBRVS structure was developed, maintained, and updated by CMS and is used by the Medicare program and other major payers. In addition, we have implemented and continue to expand physician incentive contracting, or “pay-for-performance,” which ties physician payment levels to performance on clinical measures.

While we generally do not delegate full financial responsibility to our physician providers in the form of capitation-based reimbursement, we maintain capitation-based arrangements in certain markets where we determine that market dynamics result in it being a useful method to lower costs and reduce underwriting risk.

Our hospital contracts provide for a variety of reimbursement arrangements depending on local market dynamics and current hospital utilization efficiency. Most hospitals are reimbursed a fixed amount per day or reimbursed a per-case amount, per admission, for inpatient covered services. A small percentage of hospitals, primarily rural, sole community hospitals, are reimbursed on a discount from approved charge basis for covered services. Our “per-case” reimbursement methods utilize many of the same attributes contained in Medicare’s Diagnosis Related Groups, or DRG, methodology. Hospital outpatient services are reimbursed by fixed case rates, fee schedules or percent of approved charges. Our hospital contracts recognize unique hospital attributes, such as academic medical centers or community hospitals, and the volume of care performed for our members. To improve predictability of expected costs, we frequently use a multi-year contracting approach with providers. In addition, the majority of our hospital contracts include a pay-for-performance component where reimbursement levels are linked to improved clinical performance, patient safety and medical error reduction.

Our provider engagement and contracting strategies are moving away from “unit price” or volume-based payment models to payment models that align compensation with the value delivered as measured by healthcare outcomes, quality and cost. Our Enhanced Personal Health Care program augments traditional fee-for-service with shared savings opportunities for providers when actual healthcare costs are below projected costs, and providers meet specific quality measures. The quality measures are based on nationally accepted, credible standards (e.g., NCQA, the American Diabetes Association and the American Academy of Pediatrics) and span preventive, acute and chronic care. We understand, however, that payment incentives alone are insufficient to create the large-scale, system-wide transformation required to achieve meaningful impacts on cost, quality and member experience. Accordingly, we invested in care delivery transformation and population health management support structures to help providers succeed under value-based payment models. This support includes our web-based population health management technology and teams of dedicated practice consultants who work alongside providers, sharing best practices, and helping them leverage our data to the benefit of their patients. In some of these arrangements, participating physician practices receive a per-member, per-month clinical coordination fee to compensate them for important care management activities that occur outside of the patient visit (e.g., purchasing an electronic health record or hiring care management nurses), all of which have been shown to reduce healthcare costs and improve care outcomes. Since the launch of Enhanced Personal Health Care, we now have arrangements with provider organizations covering 52% of our PCPs and have rolled this program out in each of the fourteen states where we operate as a licensee of the BCBSA.

-12-

Medical Management Programs

Our medical management programs include a broad array of activities that facilitate improvements in the quality of care provided to our members and promote cost-effective medical care. These medical management activities and programs are administered and directed by physicians and nurses. The goals of our medical management strategies are to ensure that the care delivered to our members is supported by appropriate medical and scientific evidence, is received on a timely basis and occurs in the most appropriate setting. The following is a general description of our medical management programs, which are available to our members depending on the particular plan or product in which they participate:

Precertification: A traditional medical management program involves assessment of the appropriateness of certain hospitalizations and other medical services prior to the services being rendered. For example, precertification is used to determine whether a set of hospital and medical services is being appropriately applied to the member’s clinical condition, in accordance with criteria for medical necessity as that term is defined in the member’s benefits contract. All of our health plans have implemented precertification programs for common high-tech radiology studies, including cardiac diagnostic testing, addressing an area of historically significant cost trends. Through our American Imaging Management, Inc. subsidiary, doing business as AIM Specialty Health, or AIM, we promote appropriate, safe and affordable member care in imaging, as well as oncology and sleep management. These expanded specialty benefit management solutions leverage clinical expertise and technology to engage our provider communities and members in more effective and efficient use of outpatient services.

Care Coordination: Another traditional medical management strategy we use is care coordination, which is based on nationally recognized criteria developed by third-party medical specialists. With inpatient care coordination, the requirements and intensity of services during a patient’s hospital stay are reviewed, at times by an onsite skilled nurse professional in collaboration with the hospital’s medical and nursing staff, in order to coordinate care and determine the most effective transition of care from the hospital setting. In addition, guidance for many continued stay cases is reviewed with physician medical directors to ensure appropriate utilization of medical services. We also coordinate care for outpatient services to help ensure that patients with chronic conditions who receive care from multiple physicians are able to manage the exchange of information between physicians and coordinate office visits to their physicians.

Case Management: We have implemented a medical management strategy focused on identifying the small percentage of the membership that will require a high level of intervention to manage their healthcare needs. The registered nurses and medical directors focus on members likely to be readmitted to the hospital and help them coordinate their care through pharmacy compliance, post-hospital care, follow-up visits to see their physician and support in their home. We are also working to move increasing aspects of this work to the providers we work with via our provider collaboration efforts, a set of capabilities, offerings, programs and products that help us partner with providers to leverage data, insights and technology to deliver the right care, at the right time, in the right place.

Formulary management: We have developed formularies, which are selections of drugs based on clinical quality and effectiveness. A pharmacy and therapeutics committee of physicians uses scientific and clinical evidence to ensure that our members have access to the appropriate drug therapies.

Medical policy: A medical policy group determines our national policy for the application of new medical technologies and treatments. This group is comprised of internal and external physician leaders from various specialties and areas of the country, working in cooperation with academic medical centers, practicing community physicians and medical specialty organizations such as the American College of Radiology and national organizations such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the American Cancer Society.

Quality programs: We are actively engaged with our hospital and physician networks to enable them to improve medical and surgical care and achieve better outcomes for our members. We endorse, encourage and incentivize hospitals and physicians to support national initiatives to improve the quality of clinical care and patient outcomes and to reduce medication errors and hospital infections.

External review procedures: We work with outside experts through a process of external review to provide our members scientifically and clinically, evidence-based medical care. When we receive member concerns, we have formal appeals procedures that ultimately allow coverage disputes related to medical necessity decisions under the benefits contract to be settled by independent expert physicians.

-13-

Service management: In HMO and POS networks, PCPs serve as the overall coordinators of members’ healthcare needs by providing an array of preventive health services and overseeing referrals to specialists for appropriate medical care. In PPO networks, members have access to network physicians without a PCP serving as the coordinator of care.

Provider Cost Comparison Tools: Through Estimate Your Cost, Anthem Care Comparison and other tools, our members can compare cost estimates and quality data for common services at contracted providers, with cost estimates for facility, professional and ancillary services. These cost estimates bundle related services typically performed at the time of the procedure, not just for the procedure itself. Users can review cost data for over 400 procedures in 50 states. Members can also estimate out-of-pocket costs based on a member’s own benefit coverage, deductible, and out-of-pocket maximum. We also offer information on overall facility ratings and patient experience using trusted third-party data. We continue to work on enhancing and evolving our tools to assist members in making informed and value-based healthcare decisions. In addition, we collaborate with an external independent vendor to support employers wanting to purchase a consumer engagement web solution with certain additional functionality.

Personal Health Care Guidance: These services help improve the quality, coordination and safety of healthcare, enhance communications between patients and their physicians, and reduce medical costs. Examples of services include member and physician messaging, providing access to evidence-based medical guidelines, physician quality assessment, and other consulting services.

Anthem Health Guide: Anthem Health Guide integrates customer service with clinical and wellness coaching to provide easier navigation of healthcare services for our members. Members are supported by a team of nurses, coaches, educators, and social workers using voice, click-to-chat, secure email and mobile technology. Our Smart Engagement Platform supports this integrated team using our smart engagement triggers for speech recognition, preventative and clinical gaps in care and highlighting when we have members who are identified for current healthcare support. Anthem Health Guide is fully integrated with our specialty products, such as dental, vision and other supplemental products, to ensure members can optimize their benefits.

Anthem Whole Health Connection: Anthem Whole Health Connection is focused on whole person health and connects medical, pharmacy, dental, vision, disability and supplemental health clinical and claims data to proactively identify health issues and engage our members with their health providers in new ways to deliver better healthcare experience and lower cost. Anthem Whole Health Connection is included with Anthem health benefits and one or more of the pharmacy, dental, vision, life, disability or supplemental health coverage plans.

Care Management Programs

We continue to expand our 360º Health suite of integrated care management programs and tools. 360º Health offers the following programs, among others, which are available to our members depending on the particular plan or product in which they participate, and have been proven to increase quality and reduce medical costs for our members:

ConditionCare and FutureMoms are care management and maternity management programs that serve as adjuncts to physician care. Skilled nurse professionals with added support from our team of dietitians, social workers, pharmacists, health educators and other health professionals help participants understand their condition, their doctor’s orders and how to become a better self-manager of their condition. We also offer members infertility consultation through our SpecialOffers@Anthem program, a comprehensive and integrated assembly of discounted health and wellness products and services from a variety of the nation’s leading retailers.

24/7 NurseLine offers access to qualified, registered nurses anytime. This allows our members to make informed decisions about the appropriate level of care and avoid unnecessary worry. This program also includes a referral process to the nearest urgent care facility, a robust audio library, accessible by phone, with more than 600 health and wellness topics, as well as on-line health education topics designed to educate members about symptoms and treatment of many common health concerns.

Case Management is an advanced care management program that reaches out to participants with multiple healthcare issues who are at risk for frequent and high levels of medical care in order to offer support and assistance in managing their healthcare needs. Case Management identifies candidates through claims analysis using predictive modeling techniques, the

-14-

use of health risk assessment data, utilization management reports and referrals from a physician or one of our other programs, such as the 24/7 NurseLine.

MyHealth Advantage utilizes integrated information systems and sophisticated data analytics to help our members improve their compliance with evidence-based care guidelines, providing personal care notes that alert members to potential gaps in care, enable more prudent healthcare choices, and assist in the realization of member out-of-pocket cost savings. Key opportunities are also shared with physicians through Availity® at the time of membership eligibility verification. Availity® is an electronic data interchange system that allows for the exchange of health information among providers over a secure network.

MyHealth Coach provides our members with a professional guide who helps them navigate the healthcare system and make better decisions about their well-being. MyHealth Coach proactively reaches out to people who are at risk for potentially serious health issues or have complex healthcare needs. Our health coaches help participants understand and manage chronic conditions, handle any health and wellness related services they need and make smart lifestyle choices.

HealthyLifestyles helps employees transform unhealthy habits into positive ones by focusing on behaviors that can have a positive effect on their health and their employer’s financial well-being. HealthyLifestyles programs include smoking cessation, weight management, stress management, physical activity, and diet and nutrition.

Behavioral Health Case Management is an integrated component of the health plan, supporting a wide range of members who are impacted by their behavioral health condition including specialty areas such as eating disorders, anxiety, depression and substance use. The program assists members and their families with obtaining appropriate behavioral health treatment, offering community resources, providing education and telephonic support, and promoting provider collaboration.

Autism Spectrum Disorder is a specialized case management program staffed by a dedicated team of clinicians who have been trained on the unique challenges and needs of families with a member who has a diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder. These clinicians provide education, information on community resources to help with care and support, guidance on the appropriate usage of benefits, and assistance in exploring effective treatments, such as medical services, that may help the member and their families.

Employee Assistance Programs provide 24/7 telephonic support for personal and crisis events. Members also gain access to many resources that allow support within work and personal life by providing quick and easy access to confidential resources to help meet the challenges of daily life. Examples of services available include counseling, referral assistance with child care, health and wellness, financial issues, legal issues, adoption and daily living.

Healthcare Quality Initiatives

Increasingly, the healthcare industry is able to define quality healthcare based on preventive health measurements, outcomes of care and optimal care management for chronic disease. A key to our success has been our ability to work with our network physicians and hospitals to improve the quality and outcomes of the healthcare services provided to our members. Our ability to promote quality medical care has been recognized by NCQA, the largest and most respected national accreditation program for managed care health plans.

Several quality healthcare measures, including the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set, or HEDIS®, have been incorporated into NCQA’s accreditation processes. HEDIS® measures range from preventive services, such as screening mammography and pediatric immunization, to elements of care, including decreasing the complications of diabetes and improving treatment for patients with heart disease. For health plans, NCQA’s highest accreditation status of Excellent is granted only to those plans that demonstrate levels of service and clinical quality that meet or exceed NCQA’s rigorous requirements for consumer protection and quality improvement. Plans earning this accreditation level must also achieve HEDIS® results that are in the highest range of national or regional performance. Details for each of our plans’ accreditation levels can be found at www.ncqa.org.

Our wholly-owned health outcomes research subsidiary, HealthCore, Inc., or HealthCore, generates consistent and actionable evidence to support decision making while helping to guide fresh initiatives for a range of stakeholders in the healthcare industry. By leveraging a rich array of medical and pharmacy utilization data queried from administrative claims, patient surveys, medical charts and laboratory diagnostics, among other health records, HealthCore’s multi-disciplinary

-15-

research teams uncover a broad spectrum of safety, effectiveness, pharmacoepidemiology, and health economics evidence. HealthCore’s real world evidence and comparative effectiveness research, among other data, has played roles in the product planning and development campaigns of biotechnology and pharmaceutical companies and today it lists most of the leading biologics and drug manufacturers as clients or alliance partners. Its health plan research has led to better insights into evidence-based treatment approaches, the development of value-based initiatives to drive access and adherence to treatment, and the crafting of incentives to modify patient and provider behavior. One of HealthCore’s predominant initiatives is its governmental and academic collaborations that include cooperation with some of the country’s top institutions and federal agencies, including the Food and Drug Administration, or FDA, Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute and the National Institutes of Health. HealthCore is also an active contributor to the FDA’s medical product safety surveillance Sentinel program. Additionally, HealthCore has taken a thought-leadership position in the development of pragmatic clinical trials. As a notable contributor to the health outcomes evidence base, HealthCore’s research findings are broadly disseminated during presentations at national and international medical meetings and are published in a variety of respected peer-reviewed medical and health services journals.

Our AIM subsidiary supports quality by implementing clinical appropriateness and patient safety solutions for advanced imaging procedures, cardiology, sleep medicine, specialty pharmaceuticals, medical oncology, radiation therapy and musculoskeletal services. These programs, based on widely accepted and evidence-based clinical guidelines, promote the most appropriate use of clinical services to improve the quality of overall healthcare delivered to our members and members of other health plans that are covered under AIM’s programs. To provide additional impact to its clinical appropriateness program, AIM has also implemented a provider assessment program, OptiNet®, which promotes more informed selection of diagnostic imaging and testing facilities by providing cost and facility information to physician offices at the point that a procedure is ordered. We have also leveraged AIM’s provider network assessment information to proactively engage and educate our members about imaging providers and sleep testing choices based on site capabilities and cost differences. This program is another example of how we facilitate improvements in the quality of care provided to our members and promote cost-effective medical care.

Pricing and Underwriting of Our Products

We price our products based on our assessment of current healthcare claim costs and emerging healthcare cost trends, combined with charges for administrative expenses, risk and profit, including charges for the ACA taxes and fees, where applicable. We continually review our product designs and pricing guidelines on a national and regional basis so that our products remain competitive and consistent with our profitability goals and strategies.

In applying our pricing to each employer group and customer, we maintain consistent, competitive, disciplined underwriting standards. We employ our proprietary accumulated actuarial and financial data in determining underwriting and pricing parameters for both our fully-insured and self-funded businesses.

In most circumstances, our pricing and underwriting decisions follow a prospective rating process in which a fixed premium is determined at the beginning of the contract period. For fully-insured business, any deviation, favorable or unfavorable, from the medical costs assumed in determining the premium is our responsibility. Some of our larger groups employ retrospective rating reviews, where positive experience is partially refunded to the group, and negative experience is charged against a rate stabilization fund established from the group’s favorable experience or charged against future favorable experience.

BCBSA Licenses

We are a party to license agreements with the BCBSA that entitle us to the exclusive, and in certain areas, non-exclusive use of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield names and marks in assigned geographic territories. BCBSA is a national trade association of Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensees, the primary function of which is to promote and preserve the integrity of the BCBS names and marks, as well as provide certain coordination among the member companies. Each BCBSA licensee is an independent legal organization and is not responsible for obligations of other BCBSA member organizations. We have no right to market products and services using the BCBS names and marks outside of the states in which we are licensed to sell BCBS products. We are required to pay an annual license fee to the BCBSA based on enrollment and also to comply with various operational, governance and financial standards set forth in the licenses.

-16-

We believe that we and our licensed affiliates are currently in compliance with these standards. The standards under the license agreements may be modified in certain instances by the BCBSA. See Part I, Item 1A “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K for additional details of our licensing requirements and the impact if we were not to comply with these license agreements.

Regulation

General

Our operations are subject to comprehensive and detailed state, federal and international regulation throughout the jurisdictions in which we do business. As discussed below, the regulatory aspects of the U.S. healthcare system have been and will continue to be significantly affected by the ACA and subsequent legislative and regulatory changes at the federal and state levels. Supervisory agencies, including state health, insurance and corporation departments, have broad authority to:

•	grant, suspend and revoke licenses to transact business;

•	regulate our products and services in great detail;

•	regulate, limit, or suspend our ability to market products, including the exclusion of our plans from participating on public exchanges;

•	retroactively adjust premium rates;

•	monitor our solvency and reserve adequacy;

•	scrutinize our investment activities on the basis of quality, diversification and other quantitative criteria; and

•	impose monetary and criminal sanctions for non-compliance with regulatory requirements.

To carry out these tasks, these regulators periodically examine our operations and accounts.

Regulation of Insurance Company and HMO Business Activity

The governments of the states in which we conduct business, as well as the federal government, have adopted laws and regulations that govern our business activities in various ways. Further, the ACA has resulted in increased federal regulation that significantly impacts our business. These laws and regulations, which vary significantly from state to state, restrict how we conduct our businesses and result in additional burdens and costs to us. These federal and state laws and regulations are subject to amendments and changing interpretations in each jurisdiction.

States generally require health insurers and HMOs to obtain a certificate of authority prior to commencing operations. If we were to establish a health insurance company or an HMO in any jurisdiction, we generally would have to obtain such a certificate or authorization to expand the operations permitted under an existing certificate if we already operate in the state. The time necessary to obtain such a certificate varies from jurisdiction to jurisdiction. Each health insurer and HMO must file periodic financial and operating reports with the states in which it does business. In addition, health insurers and HMOs are subject to state examination and periodic license renewal. The health benefits business also may be adversely impacted by court and regulatory decisions that expand or invalidate the interpretations of existing statutes and regulations. It is uncertain whether we can recoup, through higher premiums or other measures, the increased costs of mandated benefits or other increased costs caused by potential legislation, regulation or court rulings. See Part I, Item 1A “Risk Factors” in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

Ongoing Requirements and Changes Stemming from the ACA

The ACA significantly changed health insurance markets by prohibiting lifetime limits, certain annual limits, member cost-sharing on specified preventive benefits and pre-existing condition exclusions. Further, the ACA implemented certain requirements for insurers, including changes to Medicare Advantage payments and the minimum medical loss ratio, or MLR, provision that requires insurers to pay rebates to customers when insurers do not meet or exceed the specified MLR thresholds. In addition, the ACA also required a number of other changes with significant effects on both federal and state health insurance markets, including strict rules on how health insurance is rated, what benefits must be offered, the assessment of new taxes and fees (including annual fees on health insurance companies), the creation of public exchanges for

-17-

Individuals and Small Groups, the availability of premium and cost-sharing subsidies for qualified individuals, and expansions in eligibility for Medicaid. Changes to our business environment are likely to continue for the next several years as elected officials at the national and state levels continue to propose and enact significant modifications to existing laws and regulations, including the reduction of the individual mandate penalty to zero effective January 1, 2019, elimination of funding for cost-sharing subsidies made available for qualified individuals, and changes to taxes and fees. Also, the legal challenges regarding the ACA, including the ultimate outcome of the 2018 Texas District Court ACA Decision, could have a material adverse effect on our business, cash flows, financial condition and results of operations.

In general, the Individual market risk pool that includes public exchange markets has become less healthy since its inception in 2014. The reduction of the individual mandate penalty to zero, effective in 2019, is also expected to result in further deterioration of the overall Individual market risk pool. In June 2018, the U.S. Department of Labor, or DOL, released a final rule on association health plans, and in August 2018, the DOL, the U.S. Department of Treasury, or TRE, and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, issued a final rule on short-term limited duration insurance. In October 2018, the DOL, TRE and HHS issued a proposed rule on health reimbursement accounts, and in January 2019, HHS issued a proposed rule for the Notice of Benefit and Payment Parameters for 2020. Additionally, in October 2018 HHS issued guidance on waivers pursuant to Section 1332 of the ACA, which aims to allow states to create waiver programs allowing premium subsidies to be used for non-ACA products. These regulations and guidance may provide additional opportunities for individuals, sole proprietors and small employers to access more affordable health coverage options, but may also result in additional adverse risk selection. Based on our experience in public exchange markets to date, we have made adjustments to our premium rates and strategically reduced our participation footprint, and we will continue to evaluate the performance of our public exchange plans going forward. In addition, insurers have faced uncertainties related to federal government funding for various ACA programs. These factors may have a material adverse effect on our results of operations if premiums are not adequate or do not appropriately reflect the acuity of these individuals. Any variation from our expectations regarding acuity, enrollment levels, adverse selection, or other assumptions utilized in setting premium rates could have a material adverse effect on our results of operations, financial position, and cash flows.

Further, implementation of the ACA brings with it significant oversight responsibilities by health insurers that may result in increased governmental audits, increased assertions of False Claims Act violations, and an increased risk of other litigation.

Federal regulatory agencies continue to modify regulations and guidance related to the ACA and markets more broadly. Some of the more significant ACA rules are described below:

•	The minimum MLR thresholds by line of business for the Commercial market, as defined by HHS, are as follows:

Line of Business		%
Large Group		85
Small Group		80
Individual		80

New York state regulations require us to meet a more restrictive MLR threshold of 82% for both Small Group and Individual lines of business. The minimum MLR thresholds disclosed above are based on definitions of an MLR calculation provided by HHS, or specific states, as applicable, and differ from our calculation of “benefit expense ratio” based on premium revenue and benefit expense as reported in accordance with U.S. generally accepted accounting principles, or GAAP. Furthermore, the definitions of the lines of business differ under the various federal and state regulations and may not correspond to our lines of business. Definitions under the MLR regulation also impact insurers differently depending upon their organizational structure or tax status, which could result in a competitive advantage to some insurance providers that may not be available to us, resulting in an uneven playing field in the industry.

The ACA also imposed a separate minimum MLR threshold of 85% for Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D prescription drug plans or Medicare Part D plans. Medicare Advantage or Medicare Part D plans that do not meet this threshold will have to pay a minimum MLR rebate. If a plan’s MLR is below 85% for three consecutive years beginning with 2014, enrollment will be restricted. A Medicare Advantage or Medicare Part D plan contract will be terminated if the plan’s MLR is below 85% for five consecutive years.

-18-

HHS also finalized a rule in April 2016 that requires state Medicaid programs to set managed care capitation rates such that a minimum 85% MLR is projected to be achieved. However, this rule does not require states to collect remittances if the minimum MLR is not achieved.

Approximately 58.7% and 22.0% of our premium revenue and medical membership, respectively, were subject to the minimum MLR regulations as of and for the year ended December 31, 2018. Approximately 61.3% and 21.5% of our premium revenue and medical membership, respectively, were subject to the minimum MLR regulations as of and for the year ended December 31, 2017.

•

The ACA created an incentive payment program for Medicare Advantage plans. CMS developed the Medicare Advantage Star Ratings System, which awards between 1.0 and 5.0 stars to Medicare Advantage plans based on performance in several categories, including quality of care and customer service. The star ratings are used by CMS to award quality-based bonus payments to plans that receive a rating of 4.0 or higher. The methodology and measures included in the star ratings system can be modified by CMS annually. As of December 31, 2018, all of our Medicare Advantage plans have received a rating of 3.0 or higher.

•

Regulations require premium rate increases to be reviewed for Small Group and Individual products above specified thresholds, 10% for 2018 and 15% for 2019, and may be adjusted from time to time. The regulations provide for state insurance regulators to conduct the reviews, except for cases where a state does not have an “effective” rate review program or in federal enforcement states, in which cases HHS will conduct the reviews for any rate increase.

•

Prior to the implementation of the ACA, health insurers were permitted to use differential pricing, commonly referred to as “rating bands,” based on factors such as health status, gender and age. The ACA precludes health insurers from using health status and gender in the determination of the insurance premium. In addition, rating bands for age cannot vary by more than 3 to 1 and rating bands for tobacco use cannot vary by more than 1.5 to 1. The ongoing use of the 3 to 1 rating bands may have a significant impact on the majority of Individual and Small Group customers and could lead to adverse selection in the market as well as increased variability in projecting future premiums for those customer markets.

•

In 2014 significant new taxes and fees became effective for health insurers, some of which may or may not be passed through to customers. The most significant of the taxes and fees is the annual Health Insurance Provider Fee, or HIP Fee, on health insurers that write certain types of health insurance on U.S. risks. The annual HIP Fee is allocated to health insurers based on the ratio of the amount of an insurer’s net premium revenues written during the preceding calendar year to the amount of health insurance premium for all U.S. health risk for those certain lines of business written during the preceding calendar year. We record our estimated liability for the HIP Fee in full at the beginning of the year with a corresponding deferred asset that is amortized on a straight-line basis to selling, general and administrative expense. The final calculation and payment of the annual HIP Fee is due by September 30th of each fee year. The HIP Fee is non-deductible for federal income tax purposes. We price our affected products to cover the increased selling, general and administrative and income tax expenses associated with the HIP Fee. The total amount due from allocations to health insurers was $11.3 billion for 2016, was suspended for 2017, had resumed and increased to $14.3 billion for 2018 and is suspended for 2019. The HIP Fee is scheduled to go back into effect for 2020.

•

Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates will not increase as much as they would otherwise due to the payment formula promulgated by the ACA that continues to impact reimbursements. We also expect further and ongoing regulatory guidance on a number of issues related to Medicare, including evolving methodology for ratings and quality bonus payments. CMS is also proposing changes to its program that audits data submitted under the risk adjustment programs in a way that could increase financial recoveries from plans.

Pharmacy Benefit Manager Regulation

A number of proposals are being considered at the federal and state levels that would increase regulation of pharmacy benefit managers. Such proposals under consideration include (1) proposed federal regulation of drug rebates that would narrow the types of rebates that are allowed in public programs and require rebates to be reflected at the point-of-sale, (2) proposed federal regulation that would tie Medicare reimbursement for physician-administered drugs to prices paid in other countries, and (3) proposed reforms to the Medicare drug benefit, such as reducing the number of drugs that must be covered

-19-

in protected classes and beneficiary cost-sharing changes that aim to lower out-of-pocket costs. These reforms have the potential to have broad impacts on our pharmacy benefit business.

Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act

The Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act, or the Dodd-Frank Act, includes a number of financial reforms and regulations that affect our business and financial reporting, including margin requirements and reporting and clearing transactions for our investments in derivative instruments. In addition, the Dodd-Frank Act creates a Federal Insurance Office with limited powers that include information-gathering and subpoena authority for certain parts of our business, including life insurance, but excluding health insurance. There remains uncertainty surrounding the manner in which the provisions of the Dodd-Frank Act will ultimately be implemented by the various regulatory agencies, and the full extent of the impact of the requirements on our operations is unclear, especially in light of the Trump administration’s January 2017 executive order calling for a full review of the Dodd-Frank Act and the regulations promulgated thereunder.

HIPAA and Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act

The federal Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, or HIPAA, imposes obligations for issuers of health insurance coverage and health benefit plan sponsors. This law requires guaranteed renewability of healthcare coverage for most group health plans and certain individuals. Also, the law limited exclusions based on preexisting medical conditions.

The administrative simplification provisions of HIPAA imposed a number of requirements on covered entities (including insurers, HMOs, group health plans, providers and clearinghouses). These requirements include uniform standards of common electronic healthcare transactions; privacy and security regulations; and unique identifier rules for employers, health plans and providers. Additional federal privacy and security requirements, including breach notification, improved enforcement, and additional limitations on use and disclosure of protected health information were passed through the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health, or HITECH, Act provisions of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and corresponding implementing regulations. States are also passing privacy and security requirements, such as the California Consumer Privacy Act, which may limit our use and disclosure of member data and impose additional breach notification requirements.

The federal Gramm-Leach-Bliley Act generally places restrictions on the disclosure of non-public information to non-affiliated third parties, and requires financial institutions, including insurers, to provide customers with notice regarding how their non-public personal information is used, including an opportunity to “opt out” of certain disclosures. State departments of insurance and certain federal agencies adopted implementing regulations as required by federal law. In addition, a number of states have adopted data security laws and/or regulations governing data security and/or requiring security breach notification, which may apply to us in certain circumstances.

Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974

The provision of services to certain employee welfare benefit plans is subject to the Employee Retirement Income Security Act of 1974, as amended, or ERISA, a complex set of laws and regulations subject to interpretation and enforcement by the Internal Revenue Service and the DOL. ERISA regulates certain aspects of the relationships between us, the employers that maintain employee welfare benefit plans subject to ERISA and participants in such plans. Some of our administrative services and other activities may also be subject to regulation under ERISA. In addition, certain states require licensure or registration of companies providing third-party claims administration services for benefit plans. We provide a variety of products and services to employee welfare benefit plans that are covered by ERISA. Plans subject to ERISA can also be subject to state laws and the question of whether and to what extent ERISA preempts a state law has been, and will continue to be, interpreted by many courts.

HMO and Insurance Holding Company Laws, including Risk-Based Capital Requirements

We are regulated as an insurance holding company and are subject to the insurance holding company acts of the states in which our insurance company and HMO subsidiaries are domiciled. These acts contain certain reporting requirements as well as restrictions on transactions between an insurer or HMO and its affiliates. These holding company laws and regulations generally require insurance companies and HMOs within an insurance holding company system to register with the insurance

-20-

department of each state where they are domiciled and to file with those states’ insurance departments certain reports describing capital structure, ownership, financial condition, certain intercompany transactions, enterprise risks, corporate governance and general business operations. In addition, various notice and reporting requirements generally apply to transactions between insurance companies and HMOs and their affiliates within an insurance holding company system, depending on the size and nature of the transactions. Some insurance holding company laws and regulations require prior regulatory approval or, in certain circumstances, prior notice of certain material intercompany transfers of assets as well as certain transactions between insurance companies, HMOs, their parent holding companies and affiliates. Among other provisions, state insurance and HMO laws may restrict the ability of our regulated subsidiaries to pay dividends.

Additionally, the holding company acts of the states in which our subsidiaries are domiciled restrict the ability of any person to obtain control of an insurance company or HMO without prior regulatory approval. Under those statutes, without such approval (or an exemption), no person may acquire any voting security of an insurance holding company, which controls an insurance company or HMO, or merge with such a holding company, if as a result of such transaction such person would “control” the insurance holding company. “Control” is generally defined as the direct or indirect power to direct or cause the direction of the management and policies of a person and is presumed to exist if a person directly or indirectly owns or controls 10% or more of the voting securities of another person. Dispositions of control generally are also regulated under the state holding company acts.

The states of domicile of our regulated subsidiaries have statutory risk-based capital, or RBC, requirements for health and other insurance companies and HMOs based on the Risk-Based Capital (RBC) For Health Organizations Model Act, or RBC Model Act. These RBC requirements are intended to assess the capital adequacy of life and health insurers and HMOs, taking into account the risk characteristics of a company’s investments and products. In general, under these laws, an insurance company or HMO must submit a report of its RBC level to the insurance department or insurance commissioner of its state of domicile for each calendar year. The law requires increasing degrees of regulatory oversight and intervention as a company’s RBC declines. As of December 31, 2018, the RBC levels of our insurance and HMO subsidiaries exceeded all RBC requirements.

Guaranty Fund Assessments

Under insolvency or guaranty association laws in most states, insurance companies can be assessed for amounts paid by guaranty funds for policyholder losses incurred when an insurance company becomes insolvent. Most state insolvency or guaranty association laws currently provide for assessments based upon the amount of premiums received on insurance underwritten within such state (with a minimum amount payable even if no premium is received). Under many of these guaranty association laws, assessments against insurance companies that issue policies of accident or sickness insurance are made retrospectively. Some states permit insurers to recover assessments paid through full or partial premium tax offsets or through future policyholder surcharges. The amount and timing of any future assessments cannot be predicted with certainty; however, future assessments are likely to occur.

Employees

At December 31, 2018, we had approximately 63,900 full-time employees. Our employees are an important asset, and we seek to develop them to their full potential. We believe that our relationship with our employees is good.

Available Information

We are a large accelerated filer (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended, or the Exchange Act) and are required, pursuant to Item 101 of Regulation S-K, to provide certain information regarding our website and the availability of certain documents filed with or furnished to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. Our Internet website is www.antheminc.com. We have included our Internet website address throughout this Annual Report on Form 10-K as a textual reference only. The information contained on, or accessible through, our Internet website is not incorporated into this Annual Report on Form 10-K. We make available, free of charge, by mail or through our Internet website, our Annual Report on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Exchange Act as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with or furnish it to the SEC. We also include on our Internet website our Corporate Governance Guidelines, our Standards of Ethical Business Conduct and the charter of each standing committee of our Board

-21-

of Directors. In addition, we intend to disclose on our Internet website any amendments to, or waivers from, our Standards of Ethical Business Conduct that are required to be publicly disclosed pursuant to rules of the SEC and the New York Stock Exchange, or NYSE. Anthem, Inc. is an Indiana corporation incorporated on July 17, 2001.