More women move into top health insurance jobs

More women are moving into executive positions with health insurers, a business long dominated by men. (Source: "More women take top jobs at health insurers," Youngstown Vindicator, March 23, 2008.) Later this year Patricia Hemingway Hall, 55, will become the first woman to run Health Care Service Corporation, the nation's fourth-largest health insurance company with more than 12 million members, while seven months ago Angela Braly, 46, became chief executive at WellPoint Inc., the nation's largest health insurer with 35 million subscribers. According to experts, part of the reason women are moving into these positions is that insurers want to appeal to female decision-makers in the home and employment markets. In addition, providers of medical care and advocacy groups increasingly are marketing specifically to women.