Aetna

In­de­pend­ence Blue Cross, the largest health in­sur­er in the Philadelphia re­gion, said Tues­day that its 2011 net in­come soared 49 percent, to $314.8 mil­lion. The com­pa­ny's prof­it mar­gin of 3.4 per­cent was its biggest in at least 10 years. "I'm proud of the pro­gress we've made," said IBC's president and chief ex­ec­u­tive of­fi­cer, Dan­iel J. Hilferty. The in­sur­er has rebounded from two years of losses, in 2008 and 2009. Glen Philips, an IBC customer, said it bothered him to hear of IBC's strong profits, given the heavy cost of buying insurance for 40-plus employees at Philips Bros.

In the Region Deb Shops gets OK for asset sale Deb Shops Inc., a bankrupt Philadelphia retailer of clothing for teenage girls and young women, won approval Tuesday from a bankruptcy court in Wilmington to sell its assets to lenders who were owed $75 million, after no competing offers were received. With no other bids, Deb canceled an Aug. 31 auction. Lee Equity Partners L.L.C., the private equity firm that bought Deb in 2007, is part of the purchasing group and will own 3 percent of the new equity, said Damon P. Meyer, a lenders' spokesman.

Daniel F. McGill Sr., 81, of Rhawnhurst, a retired insurance marketing executive with a sense of humor, died Monday, March 4, of cancer at a relative's home in Horsham Township. For 40 years, Mr. McGill worked for Aetna Inc. in Center City. He led the marketing of the firm's products to independent insurance brokerages in the Philadelphia area and South Jersey. Born in Rhawnhurst, he lived there for most of his life before moving in with a daughter last October when his health failed.

Manville Corp., being reorganized under bankruptcy laws, said yesterday that it had reached settlements with its insurers that would be sent to the courts for approval. The company said that under the settlements, it would receive $387,500 from INSCO, $7.9 million from Prudential and $1.9 million from Gibraltar on Jan. 2, 1989, or five business days after confirmation of a plan of reorganization in Manville's current Chapter 11 bankruptcy proceeding, whichever came later. Manville said Aetna would pay $5.8 million on Dec. 15, 1986, or five business days after confirmation of the plan, whichever was later.

'Premium' service from a health insurer While George W. Bush and Al Gore are debating the health-care system in this country, I have already received my good news. Aetna just sent me a bombshell: Starting in January, my premium will go up from $10 a month (plus co-pay on prescription drugs) to $50 a month, with no additional coverage for medicines. That means a husband and wife who continue with Aetna will pay $100 a month, as well as a whopping fee for their drugs. ED GALING Hatboro Race and stadiums Writers like Mark Alan Hughes (OpEd column, Oct. 16)

Independence Blue Cross' board of directors acted quickly to choose a new leader from inside the company to fill the vacancy caused by the death 16 days ago of its president and chief executive officer, G. Fred DiBona Jr. The Blue Cross board unanimously elected Joseph Frick to head the Philadelphia region's largest health insurer at a regularly scheduled meeting yesterday. Frick had been senior vice president for human resources and administration. He and Christopher Butler, another senior Blue Cross executive, had been serving together in the chief executive position since early January, when DiBona's battle with kidney cancer prevented him from being in the office on a regular basis.

Independence Blue Cross, the biggest health insurer in the Philadelphia region, added 45,020 members last year, the first growth since 2008 for the Center City nonprofit, which serves nearly 3.1 million people. IBC has yet to release comprehensive financial results for 2011, but president and chief executive Daniel J. Hilferty said the company continued its recovery from losses in 2008 and 2009 and expected to report an improvement over 2010, when it had a profit margin of 2.2 percent.

For the third time in 15 years, Claudia B. Timbo has started a new call center up in Blue Bell. This time, she's calling it CompanyVoice , and leasing a floor of a vacant Aetna Inc. building on Harvest Drive - enough space for 125 people - with options to take the three other floors as business grows. Timbo says her new clients include law firm Linebarger Goggan Blair & Sampson L.L.P. , which handles homeowner tax claims for the City of Philadelphia , Continental Bank , and trucking companies seeking sales leads.

For the first time, some of the region's largest employers have formed a coalition to fight relentless increases in health-care costs by improving the quality of care. The 10 employer members of the Greater Philadelphia Business Coalition on Health provide health insurance for 100,000 people in the region, and they plan to use that leverage to create report cards and other tools to reshape health care. "If we all get together, we have a little more power, a little more clout," said Dottie McFalls, a principal in human resources at the Vanguard Group, which employs 11,000 in Chester County.