Cigna Company History

A Timeline of Service and Success

For more than 125 years, Cigna^® has helped people lead healthier, more secure lives. Today, we remain a global health insurance company dedicated to serving our customers and the communities in which we live and work.

Highlights from Cigna's history include:

2011

• Cigna launches its first global Individual Private Medical Insurance plan for individuals living around the world.
• Cigna sells the Cigna Government Services^® business to BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina.
• Cigna opens an operation in Singapore, the 29th country or jurisdiction in which Cigna is licensed.
• Cigna opens an operation in Turkey.

2010

• Cigna becomes the international leader in benefits for people living abroad with the acquisition of Vanbreda International.
• The acquisition of Kronos Optimal Health strengthens our onsite health service offerings in the U.S.
• J.D. Power and Associates certifies the Cigna HealthCare^® Call Centers as "providing an outstanding customer service experience" for the fourth year in a row.
• Cigna Korea provides the staff and financing for the popular "dental bus" program from the Seoul National University Dental Hospital. The bus services people who, in general, have never  before had access to dental care.
• Cigna sells Intracorp's workers' compensation and disability case management business to GENEX.
• Cigna Tel-Drug^® becomes known as Cigna Home Delivery Pharmacy^SM.
• Cigna and Humana form an alliance on retiree solutions for employers.

2009

• Cigna & CMC Life Insurance Company Limited, a joint venture between Cigna and China Merchants Group, announced the launch of its first comprehensive health care product in China.
• Cigna became the first and only health service company to offer live 24/7/365 access to its call center service representatives for medical, dental and pharmacy plan customers and contracted health care professionals.
• Cigna contracts with Merck & Co for the medications Januvia^® and Janumet^®, marking the first outcomes-based pharmacy contract in the U.S.
• Cigna forms Cigna Specialty Pharmacy Management.

2008

• Cigna acquires Great-West Healthcare, the Healthcare Division of Great-West Life & Annuity, with a network of approximately 4,275 hospitals and over 575,000 physicians and ancillary health care professionals that focuses on providing health care solutions to small and mid-sized businesses in the western United States.
• The Business Insurance Readers Choice Awards recognize Cigna as the best managed care organization and as having the best employee assistance program (EAP); it is the fourth year in a row that Cigna's EAP wins best honors.
• The Global Knowledge Exchange Network (GKEN) is created through a $1 million grant from the Cigna Foundation. GKEN brings leaders from government, health care, business, philanthropy, academia, and health insurance companies together to advance better practices in health care.

2007

• Twenty-fifth anniversary of the formation of Cigna Corporation through the merger of INA and Connecticut General, and the 20th anniversary of our operations in Korea and Hong Kong.
• The acquisition of Sagamore Health Network, Inc. boosts membership by 3% and adds distribution capabilities.

2006

• Cigna acquires Star HRG, a leading provider of affordable, limited-benefit health plans and employee benefits for hourly and part-time workers and their families.
• Cigna expands its consumer engagement and health advocacy capabilities through its acquisition of privately held vielife Limited, a U.K.-based leading provider of integrated online health management and coaching programs.

2005

• Cigna expands Consumer Directed programs and receives top awards for "Best Health Plan Initiative for Consumer Directed Health Care" and "Best Technology Introduced by a Health Plan Organization for Employee/Consumer Choice."
• Cigna acquires Choicelinx Corp., a benefits technology and services company based in Manchester, N.H.
• Cigna Healthcare's Medicare Administration Division begins operating under the name Cigna Government Services.
• Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services choose Cigna to be a Medicare Part D prescription drug provider.

2004

• Cigna focuses on consumer-related health and related benefits after completing the sale of its Retirement benefits business. New programs include the CignaTURE^© suite of products, including Cigna Choice Fund^®, a Senior Care segment, and a Taft-Hartley and government segment.
• Cigna Group Insurance integrates health and disability programs.

2002

• Cigna receives approval to enter the Chinese life insurance market, the first established after China becomes a member of the WTO. Later in the year, a joint venture is established to market life insurance in Shenzhen.
• The myCigna.com web portal receives "Best in Show" honors by Business Insurance.

2001

• To help people cope with the stress and anxiety caused by the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Cigna Behavioral Health extends counseling assistance to any member of the public.
• Business Insurance names Cigna.com "Best of the Web." Intracorp.com receives "Best in Show" honors for its Claims Toolbox.
• Cigna appears on Latina Style's list for the fourth consecutive year and on Working Mother's list for the 10th consecutive year. The National Association of Executive Women recognizes Cigna for its work/life programs.
• Computerworld names Cigna one the best places to work in information technology for the fourth consecutive year.

2000

• Cigna launches TimesSquare Capital Management, Inc. as the company's independent, dedicated asset-management operation.
• Cigna sells its U.S. accidental death, individual life and group life reinsurance businesses to a subsidiary of Swiss Reinsurance Company.

1999

• Cigna completes the sale of its property-casualty domestic and international businesses to ACE Limited of Hamilton, Bermuda. This enables Cigna to focus on its global health, life and pension businesses.

1998

• In February, the value of Cigna common stock exceeds $200 per share for the first time, and on May 4, Cigna's common stock splits three-for-one.
• Intracorp launches SmartSteps, its disease management program for chronic conditions.
• Cigna completes the sale of its individual life insurance and annuities businesses to Lincoln National Corporation.

1997

• Cigna acquires Healthsource, a New Hampshire-based health care company. Healthsource's products and markets serve areas of the United States where HMOs are under-represented.

1996

• Cigna Financial Services, member NASD/SIPC, opens in July. The discount brokerage, based in Hartford, Connecticut, offers a broad range of investment choices, including IRAs, mutual funds, stocks and fixed-income securities.
• Cigna launches a dental PPO to complement its indemnity and prepaid dental offerings.

1995

• The value of Cigna's common stock exceeds $100 per share for the first time.

1994

• Cigna International opens an office in Beijing, China, forty-three years after exiting the mainland market.
• MCC Behavioral Health begins providing behavioral-health disability-benefits management programs.
• Cigna joins the March of Dimes fight for healthy babies as a national sponsor of the annual walk-a-thon. In the first 5 years of sponsorship, 29,431 employees walk at over 80 sites, helping to raise $7.6 million.

1993

• Cigna purchases Tel-Drug, a mail-order pharmaceutical company to merge with RxPRIME, a Cigna-managed pharmacy-benefit program formed in 1992.
• Cigna adopts the new "Tree of Life" corporate symbol.

1992

• The Cigna companies celebrate their bicentennial.

1991

• Business Week recognizes Cigna's employee-staffed tutoring program for elementary school students as one of the United States' premier corporate-sponsored education programs, and the Conference Board gives the project its "Best in Class" award, recognizing the initiative as the best corporate education improvement program in the country.

1990

• Cigna acquires EQUICOR, the nation's sixth-largest provider of employee benefits. Included in this acquisition was the Medicare administration division of Equicor which was eventually renamed Cigna Healthcare Medicare Administration.

1989

• Cigna acquires the MCC Companies, a national leader in managed mental-health care and substance-abuse programs, founded in 1974. These companies are rebranded as Cigna Behavioral Health, Inc. in 1999.
• Cigna International Financial Services is formed to provide life and health insurance outside the United States.
• Cigna moves its corporate headquarters into One Liberty Place, part of a new development in Philadelphia's Center City district.

1987

• Cigna's Employee Benefits Division sells an innovative, flexible managed-health and dental-care program to Allied-Signal, covering 37,000 salaried and non-union employees. The plan is so successful that enrollment climbs to 110,000 employees and dependents within three years.

1984

• Cigna acquires AFIA, founded in 1918, an international insurance underwriting association that reaches customers in more than 100 countries.
• Cigna acquires Dental Health, Inc., becoming the first national carrier to enter the prepaid-dental-health market.
• Cigna Reinsurance pioneers reinsurance for organ transplants, allowing smaller insurers and HMOs to cover these rare and expensive operations.

1983

• Cigna moves its headquarters to Philadelphia.

1982

• Cigna Corporation is formed, and with it the name "Cigna" is first used. It is a combination of the initials of the INA Corporation and Connecticut General Corporation. Final regulatory approval of Cigna's formation occurs on March 31.

1981

• CG (Connecticut General Corporation) and INA (INA Corporation) announce their intent to combine their operations.
• Connecticut General Insurance Corporation becomes a general business corporation and is renamed Connecticut General Corporation.

1980

• INA purchases the nation's oldest HMO, the Ross-Loos Medical Group, founded in 1923 and headquartered in Los Angeles.

1978

• INA enters the prepaid-health-plan business by acquiring HMO International of Los Angeles. A year later, INA expands its activities in this area by acquiring ABC-HMO of Phoenix, Arizona, and organizing an HMO to serve Dallas, Texas.

1977

• CG sets up a cost-containment organization in the Medical Program Department to help employers manage the cost of benefit programs.

1975

• CG becomes the first large Hartford-area employer to provide its employees with on-site day-care facilities. In 1982, a new custom-built day-care center opens.

1974

• The Metropolitan Clinics of Counseling (MCC) mental-health clinics are founded in Minneapolis. One year later, MCC begins offering employee assistance programs (EAP) to employers. MCC will be acquired by Cigna in 1989.

1970

• INA forms International Rehabilitation Associates (IRA) to market professional rehabilitation services to insurance companies and other organizations. IRA is the first medical-cost-containment business in the United States. Utilization review, second-opinion surgery, disease management and other cost-containment initiatives are added as IRA grows, and all services are marketed under the name Intracorp.

1969

• CG establishes an HMO to serve Columbia, Maryland.

1968

• CG organizes the first three of what will become a "family" of mutual funds: CG Fund, CG Income Fund and Companion Fund. At the same time, the company launches an initiative to qualify its career agents to market the funds to clients.

1967

• Connecticut General Life Insurance Company forms Connecticut General Insurance Corporation, a holding company, to increase the number of insurance and investment products that can be offered.
• Insurance Company of North America forms INA Corporation to expand into insurance-related and non-insurance businesses.

1966

• INA expands MEND (Medical and Educational Needs for the Disabled) throughout the United States. Under the leadership of George Welch, rehabilitation specialists are soon working with claims personnel in each of INA's fifty service offices.

1965

• INA acquires Pacific Employers Group (PEG, which includes PEIC) to establish a stronger presence on the U.S. West Coast and expand its workers' compensation business.
• INA partners with its agents and brokers in Project Friendship to sponsor CARE packages. Widely hailed as a unique blend of humanitarianism and business in a people-to-people program, Project Friendship raises the equivalent of 468 tons of food in its first year.

1964

• CG introduces group dental insurance for any employer with at least 35 employees.

1963

• CG begins investment in the "new city" of Columbia, Maryland, a planned community designed by James Rouse. Cigna will sell its 80% interest in 1985.

1961

• After leading the struggle to change laws in Connecticut regulating the investment of insurance premiums, CG organizes its first "separate account" for pension clients wishing to invest funds primarily in equities.
• Pacific Employers Insurance Company (PEIC), founded in 1923, initiates MEND to manage workers' compensation cases using caseworkers to develop and monitor individualized programs of therapy. This is one of the first medical-cost-containment initiatives in the U.S., and a forerunner of "managed care" programs. INA will acquire PEIC in 1965.

1959

• CG purchases an RCA 501 computer and begins to apply electronic data processing to its insurance operations.

1958

• INA installs its first electronic data-processing system based on an IBM 705 computer.

1957

• CG moves to its new home office to rural Bloomfield, Connecticut, six miles from Hartford. CG is at the vanguard of the development of office parks.

1956

• INA organizes the Life Insurance Company of North America (LINA) to underwrite life and group insurance.

1950

• CG introduces medical catastrophe (major medical) insurance, writing the first policy in the United States for its own employees.
• Charlotte Cowan becomes CG's first woman officer when she is appointed Assistant Controller. INA's first woman officer will be Ruth Salzmann, promoted in 1960 to Associate Actuary.

1947

• Under the leadership of Stuart Smith, estate planning becomes CG's uniform method of marketing individual life insurance. Although copied by competitors, CG gains a strong position in the sale of life insurance to wealthy Americans.

1946

• INA establishes an international department to coordinate underwriting and services in Europe, Asia, Africa, the Near East and Central and South America.

1945

• INA establishes in-house training for employees and agents.

1942

• At the request of the United States Army, an INA company writes accident and health insurance for the thirty men working on the Manhattan Project, without being told the nature of their employment.

1937

• CG takes a leading role in the development of group hospital and surgical benefits, firmly establishing itself as a leading provider of group health insurance.

1929

• Ross-Loos, the first health maintenance organization (HMO) in the United States, is established in Los Angeles. INA will purchase the Ross-Loos Medical Group in 1980.
• CG establishes a group pension department.

1926

• Both INA and CG begin to insure the age of flight. INA joins a syndicate to insure aircraft, and CG writes the first individual accident coverage offered passengers of regularly scheduled airlines. In later years, CG pioneers the writing of group contracts for the employees of many of the nation's fledgling airlines and aircraft-manufacturing companies.
• CG moves into its new main office building, modeled on an Italian palazzo, in Hartford, Connecticut at a corner of Bushnell Park.

1925

• INA moves into its new main office building in Philadelphia across town from the city's traditional business center, and the gateway to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway, which is in development.

1924

• CG opens its first branch office in Chicago, beginning a trend away from the general agency system.
• CG writes its first group pension contract.

1919

• CG introduces group accident and sickness coverage.
• CG sets up a separate reinsurance bureau within the Actuarial Department to manage the company's expanding reinsurance activities.

1918

• Representatives from a group of United States-based insurance companies meet in New York City to form the American Foreign Insurance Association (AFIA). INA is a founding member. Over the next few years, member companies open offices in Japan, Thailand, Indonesia, Singapore, Korea, the Philippines, New Zealand, the Mediterranean area, South America, India, the Near East and Europe. INA represents the consortium in eight of these markets. INA withdraws in 1921, and a decade later independently pursues international growth.
• CG establishes a separate Group Department and sells its first large case, covering 5,400 employees of Gulf Oil.

1913

• CG writes its first group life insurance contract covering 100 employees of The Hartford Courant newspaper.

1912

• CG organizes the Accident Department and begins to offer individual accident and, later, health insurance.

1906

• Fires from the San Francisco earthquake leave nearly five square miles of the city in ruins. INA and subsidiaries promise to pay losses in full - a total of $4,772,000.

1900

• CG founds its Bureau of Financial Statistics, a unit organized to advise the company's managers on the investment of premium dollars. The forerunner of the investment operations of Cigna Retirement and Investment Services, the unit's employees pioneer the collection and analysis of statistics before recommending the purchase of stocks, bonds, mortgages and other financial instruments.

1898

• Benjamin Rush takes command of INA's marine branch and quickly establishes methods, later known as "scientific underwriting," to guide risk assessment. These methods lead to the decline in claims and rise in profits as the quality of INA's marine business improves.

1897

• INA appoints the Yang-tsze Insurance Association, Ltd., as its agent in Shanghai, and becomes the first American company to write insurance in China.

1887

• INA appoints agents for the United Kingdom, Europe and South America, located in London, Vienna and Buenos Aires, respectively.
• INA appoints agents for the United Kingdom, Europe and South America

1871

• In October, the great Chicago fire burns for two days, destroying 2,000 acres and leaving 100,000 people homeless. INA pays $650,000, one of 51 insurance companies (out of a total of 202) to pay claims in full.

1865

• The Governor of Connecticut signs a special act of the General Assembly incorporating the Connecticut General Life Insurance Company (CG).

1849

• INA appoints an agent for California who remits premiums to the Walnut Street home office in gold dust.

1794

• INA issues its first life insurance policy, insuring a sea captain against death during a voyage. The policy even includes a clause promising benefits if Barbary Coast pirates capture the captain.
• The Pennsylvania legislature approves a bill to incorporate the Insurance Company of North America, authorizing the writing of marine, fire and life policies.

1792

• After a series of meetings in Philadelphia's Independence Hall, a group of prominent citizens forms the Insurance Company of North America (INA). INA is the first marine insurance company in the United States, and is the nation's oldest stockholder-owned insurer today.
• INA issues marine policies #1 and #2, insuring the hull and cargo of the ship "America" on a voyage from Philadelphia to Londonderry, Northern Ireland.