Elaborated SWOT Analysis of Aetna – America’s Leading Health Insurance Provider

Quick Stats on Aetna

Founder	Eliphalet Adams Bulkeley
Year Founded	1853
Origin	Hartford, Connecticut, U.S.
No. of Employees	47,950+
Company Type	Public
Market Cap	US$69.64 Billion (2022)
Annual Revenue	US$60.6 Billion (2018)
Net Income/ Profit	US$1.9 Billion (2017)

Products & Services by Aetna

Aetna has operated in the health insurance industry for more than 100 years. The product and services offered by Aetna are as follows –

• Health insurance plans for individuals and families
• Medicare
• Member programs
• Healthcare-related services

Competitors of Aetna

Aetna competes on a global level with many other Healthcare Insurance Companies. The top 5 competitors of Aetna are

• Cigna
• Humana
• UnitedHealth Group
• Aetna 
• WellCare Health Plans

Now that we understand the company’s core business, let’s delve into the SWOT analysis of Aetna.

SWOT Analysis of Aetna

A SWOT analysis determines the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats of a company. It is a proven management paradigm that allows Aetna to benchmark its business and performance against that of its competitors and the industry as a whole.

This is a great tool for identifying where the business is doing well, where it is failing, developing countermeasures, and determining how the business can grow.

To better understand the SWOT Analysis of Aetna, refer to the infographics image below

Now first let’s begin with the strengths of the company from the SWOT analysis of Aetna.

Strengths of Aetna

Strengths are an integral part of the company that distinguishes the company from its competitors. Aetna has many strengths that enable it to prosper in the market over the years. The strengths of Aetna are as follows

• A subsidiary of CVS Health: Aetna is the subsidiary of CVS Health which in itself is one of the biggest strengths for Aetna because the healthcare institute gets both financial and recognition support from the parent company.
• Reputation & Brand Name: Aetna is the most well-established firm in its industry. It is the world’s largest insurance company which serves more than 10 states with its main customer base of more than 22 Million in the United States and expatriates.
• Focus on Social Schemes: Aetna Life Insurance has long been a supporter of global health plans typically including medical, dental, behavioural and disability. With a variety of world-class services, it leads the industry in health protection and dental plans.
• Highly Skilled Workforce: Successful training and learning programmes have resulted in a highly competent workforce. They are not just highly skilled but also driven to achieve greater success.
• Affordable Insurance: Aetna insurance company is the market leader and serves the people in the United States with insurance that is low in rates but with superior benefits.
• Financial Position: Aetna has a very strong financial position in the market with consecutive profits over the years along with accumulated profit reserves which can be utilised for future expenditures or marketing activities.
• High Level of Customer Satisfaction: Aetna has gained the trust of more than a million clients and has a very strong customer relationship management team through which they keep their current customers very satisfied and also enjoy a good brand equity status among potential customers.
• Strong Supplier Community: It has built a culture among suppliers where the suppliers not only promote the company’s services but also invest in training the consulting team to explain to the client how he/she can extract the maximum benefits out of the insurance services.

Weaknesses of Aetna

Weaknesses are the areas Aetna can work upon. Some of Aetna’s weaknesses are:

• Research & Development: Aetna has a good share of expenditure on the research and development department but it is spending way less than a few of the players within the industry which have benefitted as a result of their innovative products.
• Diversity in the Workforce: The local workers contribute to the majority of the workforce at Aetna making it difficult for outsiders to adjust and hence resulting in the loss of talent.
• Low Market Share: Although the company has a significant presence in the United States, the insurance company is not known to many people due to the company’s low share in the market.
• Customer Service: Given it is the largest healthcare company it is only natural to have so many customers and in some areas, the company fails to provide customer satisfaction.
• Delayed Claims: Many states reported the authority of delayed claims payments to policyholders and increasing policy cancellations. 

Opportunities for Aetna 

Opportunities are uncontrollable external circumstances that a person may be able to take advantage of. These external factors could give the company an advantage in the marketplace. Opportunities for Aetna are:

• Possibilities in the Online World: Clients’ increasing acceptance of online services will allow Aetna Group to offer innovative services to customers in the Insurance (Life) market.
• Social Media: Over the years the number of active users on social media channels has increased and with this Aetna can make use of its social media handles to promote its products, interact with customers and even provide after-sale services.

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• Future of Insurance Company: Global life premium insurance growth is predicted to rebound to 3% with increased risk awareness owing to COVID-19 and global economic recovery set to accelerate the demand for life insurance products. 
• Future Trends: The next 10 years will see the insurance industry moving from traditional to more customer-centric products. In the post-pandemic era, due to personalised services, the products are given based on information collected from external sources and devices.
• Shift From Protection To Prevention: There is a general trend toward risk prevention rather than risk mitigation, which indicates that insurance companies should concentrate on risk prevention rather than risk mitigation.

Threats to Aetna

Threats are those factors that have the potential to provide harm to the organisation in any form. The threats of Aetna are as follows:

• Policies on Slaves: In New Jersey, Aetna issued life insurance policies to slaveowners covering the lives of their slaves. The complaint blamed slavery for present-day disparities between blacks and whites in income, education, literacy, health, life expectancy and crime.
• Lobbying Cases: Aetna had been caught spending more than $2.0 million on lobbying in 2009. Such lobbying and policies on slaves have reduced the goodwill of Aetna in the market.
• Gig Economy: Most organised companies across the world offer group insurance. Various online-based and reputed companies like Fiverr, Amazon Mechanical Turk, and others have entered the ‘freelancer’ population who work without any formal company allegiance. This has resulted in an enormous loss for the insurance companies.
• Competition: Since insurance was privatised, Aetna has lost its lustre and now confronts intense competition from private insurance businesses that have given the industry a new lease on life.
• Changes in Government: Because fiscal and monetary factors vary with each new government, tactics must be altered correspondingly. This results in a slew of issues.

This ends our elaborated SWOT analysis of Aetna. Let us conclude our learning below.