Communications Director, Connecticut Hospital Association
110 Barnes Road, Wallingford, CT
rall@chime.org, 203-265-7611
The Washington Post – Wednesday, January 29, 2025
By Daniel Gilbert
Local police conducted security checks and stood guard at the homes of health-care executives dozens of times in the weeks after UnitedHealthcare’s CEO was killed on Dec. 4, a sign of the heightened concerns that security professionals say persist after the targeted shooting.
In suburban Texas, police arrived at the home of David Joyner, CEO of CVS, for a “special watch” in the shooting’s immediate aftermath. Later that day, police in Connecticut patrolled the secluded home of Cigna CEO David Cordani. And over the next few days, police officers in Missouri were hired to stand guard overnight in an unmarked car outside the home of Centene CEO Sarah London.
Law enforcement records reviewed by The Washington Post illuminate how much security considerations changed last month following Brian Thompson’s killing, showing an abrupt increase in police presence and armed guards at the homes of health executives. While experts say it is not clear how long regular police patrols of executive homes will continue, security professionals say that enhanced security measures are more than a passing phenomenon.
Photographs and bios of executives have been removed from websites, and more public meetings are expected to go virtual.
“The bell has gone off, and they have awoken to the fact that it’s a different world,” said Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, which has booked the highest revenue for this time of year in its 13-year history, with particular demand from finance, manufacturing, consulting and health care. Though he expects the surge to moderate, he said, “I don’t think it goes away.”
Thompson, 50, was shot to death on a sidewalk outside a Manhattan hotel, where UnitedHealth Group was holding an investor conference. A father of two, he rose from his roots in small-town Iowa to run UnitedHealth’s insurance unit, the biggest health insurer in the nation.
A New York grand jury indicted the suspect, Luigi Mangione, on charges of first-degree murder “in furtherance of an act of terrorism,” among other counts. He has pleaded not guilty to the state charges and is being held without bail. He faces federal charges that could include the death penalty; he has not yet entered a plea on those charges.
UnitedHealth didn’t publicized the venue for the conference, but it appears to have held the annual event at the same hotel — the New York Hilton Midtown — for the past three years, based on photos and video footage of the event space.
A UnitedHealth spokesperson said the company had no comment.
The deadly attack — on a sidewalk in the heart of the nation’s financial capital — shocked people in the health-care industry, as did the outpouring of public anger that followed. Many posted comments on social media mocking Thompson’s death and lauding Mangione for striking a blow against a system they loathe.
“I do worry about copycats, the people that want to make a statement,” said Manny Mounouchos, CEO of security firm Avante. The Toronto-based firm has seen a “huge increase in protecting CEOs,” he said, adding that other events like kidnappings have contributed to security worries. Some companies are even reconsidering holding annual shareholder meetings in person, he said. “It definitely is a big risk to have an in-person” meeting.
Most of the biggest companies in health care and pharmaceuticals are expected to hold their annual shareholder meetings virtually, though more than two dozen held them in person last year, a Post review of securities filings shows.
As a result of the UnitedHealthcare attack, “there will be some heightened security around where we have our annual meeting,” said Michael Witzeman, head of investor relations for Chemed, which operates a business providing end-of-life care. Quest Diagnostics, which also plans to hold its annual meeting this year in person, will have “robust security measures in place,” said Jillian Flanagan, a spokesperson.
Becton, Dickinson and Co., a medical technology firm, said Dec. 19 that its shareholder meeting would be virtual this year, after holding it in person in 2024. A spokesperson said the company considered a “variety of factors” and “doesn’t publicly discuss security practices.”
Many companies began holding shareholder meetings online during the covid-19 pandemic and have stuck with the format, which makes it easier for more people to attend, according to technology firms that host virtual meetings. Security is also “definitely a factor,” according to Bill Kennedy, a vice president at Broadridge, one of the leading virtual platforms.
CVS, Cigna and Humana have removed photos of executives from their websites. UnitedHealth and Centene, which manages health benefits for government-sponsored plans, took down their webpages for executive leaders.
Publicly traded companies have to report financial benefits they pay to their top executives above $10,000, perks that often include payments for personal security. Moderna, maker of one of the most widely used coronavirus vaccines, disclosed that it gave its CEO $1 million for security in 2023 “in response to a heightened threat environment.”
CVS said last year that it paid its then-CEO about $44,000 in 2023 for “personal protection,” in addition to about $350,000 for personal use of corporate aircraft and a company car and driver — as required by its security program.
Cigna disclosed paying its CEO about $180,000 for using company aircraft and less than $10,000 for “security system monitoring and maintenance.” Centene also paid its CEO for use of a company plane but didn’t report paying for personal security. UnitedHealth said its CEO, Andrew Witty, is “encouraged” to use corporate aircraft for personal travel but didn’t in 2023.
To survey how Thompson’s killing has impacted executive security, The Post requested records of calls to law enforcement from the homes of more than 20 health-care and pharmaceutical executives during 2024. The records consist of notes by police dispatchers that describe the nature of each contact, though some are heavily redacted. Officials in Denver declined to release records of police responses to the home of one CEO, saying the “privacy considerations for the residents at this address and potential security considerations outweigh the public interest.”
The records show that concern for executive safety isn’t limited to health-care insurers. In a leafy New Jersey suburb, police began regularly checking the home of Robert Davis, CEO of pharmaceutical giant Merck, starting Dec. 8, according to emergency dispatch records. Officers continued patrolling the house — once conducting four checks in a day, reporting that all was in order — even as armed private security guards were providing 24-hour protection, the records show.
The New Jersey records don’t disclose a reason for the patrols or security. But they marked an abrupt surge in activity from earlier in the year, when officers had conducted just a few checks and responded when an apparently dazed woman wandered into Davis’s backyard. In the span of about two weeks in December, emergency dispatchers logged 28 calls associated with Davis’s home, more than four times as many as the rest of the year.
Merck disclosed last year that it paid Davis about $12,000 for “installation, maintenance and remote access of home security,” in addition to personal use of company aircraft and a car and driver.
Merck declined to comment.
At the homes of Cigna’s CEO and its chief financial officer, local police in Connecticut hadn’t received any calls for service in 2024 until Dec. 4, records show, when they checked on each of their homes.
Local police were hired to provide security at the home of Cordani, Cigna’s CEO, according to records and interviews. At one point, police responded to a “suspicious vehicle” there.
The local police chief said that an officer working on “private duty” at the CEO’s house saw something that looked suspicious but turned out to be a “guy looking for his dog.” The chief added, “There’s no cases up there that rose to anything of significance.”
Cigna didn’t offer a comment in response to repeated requests.
On the morning Thompson was killed, police in Texas also showed up to the house of David Joyner, who was promoted to CEO of CVS last fall. Police released a heavily redacted report of the “special watch,” which a lawyer for the locality described as dealing with the “detection, investigation, or prosecution of crime which resulted in an outcome other than conviction.”
A week later, police in Minnesota patrolled the home of Steve Nelson, who was tapped in November to lead CVS’s health insurance unit Aetna. Records show officers were “doing house checks” for an “executive that lives here.”
CVS declined to answer written questions about its executives’ security.
Two days after Thompson’s killing, police in Missouri patrolled the house of Sarah London, CEO of Centene. In the days that followed, emergency dispatchers logged at least another 15 calls associated with the home she shares with her husband, including two consecutive days where someone accidentally set off the alarm.
Some of those patrols were a “service we offer for residents of any ilk in town if something is going on around their home,” the local police chief said. He added, “We did it for a few of the CEOs that live in town.”
Centene didn’t answer emailed questions. “We are committed to the safety of all of our employees, who work tirelessly to effectively serve our members and improve the health of the communities we serve,” a spokesperson said.
For at least several nights, off-duty police officers were hired to stand guard outside London’s home, the records show. Just after 10 p.m. one night in December, an off-duty officer requested backup after reporting that a person had showed up “claiming he lives at the address but has no ID.”
“The subject does live at the address,” the dispatcher notes show. The officer “has been informed for the future.”