Large companies likely to beef up security for executives after UnitedHealthcare CEO’s murder

The public murder of UnitedHealthcare’s CEO in Midtown Manhattan is likely to prompt a major reassessment of security for corporate executives.

Firms specializing in executive protection say they have fielded a flurry of calls from companies looking to beef up security since Brian Thompson was gunned down Wednesday morning while entering a New York hotel to co-host UnitedHealth’s annual investor meeting.

“It’s a wakeup call for a lot of companies,” said Glen Kucera, the New York-based president of Enhanced Protection Services, an arm of the security company Allied Universal. “Unfortunately, it sometimes takes an event like this to impact change in the threat landscape.”

Thompson, 50, ran the largest U.S. health insurer, a division of the nation’s fourth-biggest publicly traded company, Minnetonka-based UnitedHealth Group. New York City police, who called the shooting premeditated, were still looking for the killer. Several news organizations have reported that bullet casings left at the crime scene were marked with the word “deny” and other terms associated with claim rejections by insurers.

UnitedHealth has faced scrutiny from the media and elected officials about denying requests for medical care.

Threats against health insurers — indeed all insurers — have risen in recent years, said Dale Buckner, CEO of Global Guardian, a Washington, D.C.-based corporate security provider. By its nature, insurance is a business that can “create enemies at scale,” he said.

A denied claim or medical treatment can seriously damage a person’s financial health — or worse.

And because of the internet, corporate executives are easier to trace by people bearing a grudge. Add to that an increasingly coarse and polarized public discourse, and more public figures have added security details.

What that looks like can vary greatly by company, ranging from company-paid home security systems to drivers and bodyguards.

“At companies within the Fortune 500, and especially within the Fortune 100, there is likely some kind of executive protection program,” said Dave Komendat, a retired chief security officer for Boeing Co. who runs his own security firm in Seattle.

UnitedHealth did not respond to a request for comment on whether it provides personal protection for top executives.

Andrew Witty, UnitedHealth Group’s CEO, though, is required to use the company’s aircraft for all business travel, and he’s encouraged to do the same for personal travel, according to a UnitedHealth filing with federal securities regulators.

Minneapolis-based Target pays for a home security system for its chief executive, Brian Cornell, though it doesn’t disclose the cost in public filings. Target declined to comment. Minneapolis-based U.S. Bancorp paid $7,695 in home security expenses last year for its CEO, Andrew Cecere.

“We take the safety and security of our executive team and all our employees seriously. We do not share details of our security procedures,” said U.S. Bank spokesman Jeff Shelman.

And Minneapolis-based Ameriprise Financial paid $61,450 for home security last year for CEO Jim Cracchiolo, who works primarily out of New York City. The company also covered $23,368 for Cracchiolo’s use of a car and driver.

Top tech company executives, particularly those in the public spotlight, have racked up significant security expenses.

In 2018, Meta started paying CEO Mark Zuckerberg $10 million a year for his personal and family security, raising that to $14 million in February 2023, federal securities filings show. Meta also paid for personal security services for its other principal officers.

From 2021 to 2023, the percentage of S&P 500 companies that offered security perks for at least one of their top five executive officers grew from 23.5% to 27.6%, according to Equilar, a California-based executive data firm.

The median total value of security perks for companies that paid them doubled from $47,643 to $98,069 during that time.

Equilar’s data comes from company filings with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. Those filings don’t necessarily capture all expenses for executive protection. Some of the costs can be included in general business expenses, corporate security experts say.

Personal protection can range from guards for top executives at public events to round-the-clock service for select chief executives. Generally, “the CEO will receive a much higher level of care,” said Global Guardian’s Buckner.

By Thursday, two days after Thompson’s slaying, Global Guardian had received 70 requests from companies for personal protection services. Normally, it gets 150 to 175 such requests per month.