Share count
911Mpeak FY2017
← All companies ← UNFI Manual UNIT → ← TRUP Managed Care
UNH, Unitedhealth Group Incorporated
Managed Care financial
UnitedHealth Group sells health insurance and runs a set of health-services businesses alongside it. The insurance arm, UnitedHealthcare, collects premiums to cover the medical bills of the people it enrolls — employers and their workers, individuals, and members of government programs like Medicare and Medicaid. The services arm, Optum, manages pharmacy benefits, delivers care directly, and sells data and technology to others in the system; much of the premium dollar UnitedHealthcare takes in flows to businesses the company itself owns.
Our two distinct, yet complementary businesses — Optum and UnitedHealthcare — are working to help build a modern, high-performing health system through improved access, affordability, outcomes and experiences for the individuals and organizations we are privileged to serve.
The ability to analyze complex data and apply deep health care expertise and insights allows us to serve patients, consumers, care providers, businesses, communities and governments with more innovative products and complete, end-to-end offerings for many of the biggest challenges facing health care today.
The business
What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.
Revenue · FY2025
$447.6B
+11.8% YoY · 12% 5-yr CAGR
Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average
Revenue $449.7B 5-yr avg $366.2B
Revenue $111.7B +2.0% vs yr-ago qtr
Operating margin 8.0% yr-ago 8.3%
Net income $6.5B yr-ago $6.5B
Net margin 5.8% yr-ago 5.9%
The business in brief
read the 10-K →What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.
- What moves the needle
- This is at bottom an underwriting business, and the test that governs it is whether premiums are priced to stay ahead of the medical claims that come due — the insurer's only real form of pricing power, exercised in markets the filing itself calls highly competitive. The second test is whether owning both the insurer and the pharmacy, care-delivery, and data businesses the premium flows into is a durable structural edge or merely scale: watch the returns, not the size. Set against this is a regulated book with heavy government-program exposure, answerable to rate decisions and to the false-claims and anti-kickback rules the filing names, plus the class-action suits it flags from provider groups — so a bad year is a claims trend that outruns price with the rules free to move against it. The figures for margin, returns, and the debt load are in the record below.
- Is it a good business?
- It pays out about 84% of premiums as medical care across the record (the medical loss ratio), keeping the rest to cover administration and profit against a regulated floor. That leaves a thin operating margin, a median of about 8.1%, the sign of a volume-and-cost-control business rather than a high-margin one, though turns that sliver over fast enough to earn roughly 22% on equity. Whether membership keeps growing and medical costs stay below premiums, especially as the Medicare Advantage and Medicaid mix shifts, is what the 10-K decides, not an earnings multiple.
Drafted from the company's filings and reviewed by hand; every number is shown in full in the sections below.
The record
Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.
The record, 2016–2025
realized figures from each filing · older years to the left| 2016’16 | 2017’17 | 2018’18 | 2019’19 | 2020’20 | 2021’21 | 2022’22 | 2023’23 | 2024’24 | 2025’25 | TTMTTMMar 2026 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Income statement | |||||||||||
| $184.8B | $201.2B | $226.2B | $242.2B | $257.1B | $287.6B | $324.2B | $371.6B | $400.3B | $447.6B | $449.7B | RevenueRevenue |
| $144.1B | $158.5B | $178.1B | $189.7B | $201.5B | $226.2B | $257.2B | $290.8B | $308.8B | $352.2B | $353.3B | Premiums earnedPremiums |
| — | — | — | — | — | — | 82% | 83% | 86% | 89% | 89% | Medical loss ratioMLR |
| 7.0% | 7.6% | 7.7% | 8.1% | 8.7% | 8.3% | 8.8% | 8.7% | 8.1% | 4.2% | 4.2% | Operating marginOp. mgn |
| $7.0B | $10.6B | $12.0B | $13.8B | $15.4B | $17.3B | $20.1B | $22.4B | $14.4B | $12.1B | $12.0B | Net incomeNet inc. |
| 41% | 23% | 23% | 21% | 24% | 21% | 22% | 21% | 25% | 14% | 13% | Effective tax rateTax rate |
| Cash flow & returns | |||||||||||
| 18% | 21% | 22% | 23% | 23% | 23% | 25% | 24% | 15% | 12% | 12% | Return on equityROE |
| 12% | 16% | 16% | 16% | 16% | 16% | 17% | 17% | 7% | 4% | 4% | Retained to equityRetained/eq |
| Balance sheet | |||||||||||
| $122.8B | $139.1B | $152.2B | $173.9B | $197.3B | $212.2B | $245.7B | $273.7B | $298.3B | $309.6B | $312.6B | Total assetsAssets |
| $38.2B | $49.8B | $54.3B | $60.4B | $68.3B | $75.0B | $81.5B | $94.4B | $98.3B | $100.1B | $103.9B | Shareholders’ equityEquity |
| Per share | |||||||||||
| 968M | 985M | 983M | 966M | 961M | 956M | 950M | 938M | 929M | 911M | 910M | Shares out (diluted)Shares |
| $190.95 | $204.22 | $230.16 | $250.68 | $267.58 | $300.83 | $341.22 | $396.19 | $430.87 | $491.29 | $494.19 | Revenue / shareRev/sh |
| $7.25 | $10.72 | $12.19 | $14.33 | $16.03 | $18.08 | $21.18 | $23.86 | $15.51 | $13.23 | $13.24 | EPS (diluted)EPS |
| $2.34 | $2.82 | $3.38 | $4.07 | $4.77 | $5.52 | $6.31 | $7.21 | $8.11 | $8.69 | $8.80 | Dividends / shareDiv/sh |
| $39.44 | $50.59 | $55.26 | $62.56 | $71.10 | $78.50 | $85.74 | $100.66 | $105.78 | $109.87 | $114.17 | Book value / shareBVPS |
Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded
| 9-yr | 5-yr | |
|---|---|---|
| Revenue / share | +11.1%/yr | +12.9%/yr |
| Owner earnings / share | +8.7%/yr | −3.4%/yr |
| EPS | +6.9%/yr | −3.8%/yr |
| Dividends / share | +15.7%/yr | +12.7%/yr |
| Capital spending / share | +9.5%/yr | +13.2%/yr |
| Book value / share | +12.1%/yr | +9.1%/yr |
The record, charted
FY2016–2025Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.
Revenue
$447.6Blow FY2016
Quality & stewardship
Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.
Owner’s Scorecard
FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →
Is it a good business?
- Medical loss ratio 89.1%Costs well-coveredMedical costs $314.0B ÷ premiums earned $352.2BIndustry peers: median 86%
What this means
The number that runs a health plan: cents of every premium dollar paid back out as medical care. A regulated floor (about 80-85% under the ACA, or rebates are owed) means the plan keeps only a thin sliver, so the discipline is in pricing premiums ahead of medical cost trend. Read it across years, because a single bad cost trend, like the recent Medicare Advantage squeeze, shows up here first.
- Operating margin 4.2%Typical for a planOperating income $19.0B ÷ revenue $447.6BIndustry peers: median 4%
What this means
Health plans earn a sliver on enormous revenue, so a few points of margin is the norm and the business is really a volume-and-cost-control game. Because the margin is so thin, a small miss on medical costs swings profit hard, which is why membership scale and cost management matter more than price.
- Return on equity 12%SolidNet income $12.1B ÷ equity $100.1BIndustry peers: median 13%
What this means
The thin margin turns over fast on a modest capital base, so a plan earning its keep still shows a good return on equity. Durably above the ~10% cost of equity is what compounds value; a year below it usually means medical costs outran premiums.
Does AI threaten the moat?
Low contestabilityThe moat is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded, the kind AI cuts costs within but does not contest.
In its own filing Named as a competitive risk
Its FY2025 10-K names artificial intelligence as a competitive threat.
“Uncertain and rapidly evolving U.S. federal and state, non-U.S. and international laws and regulations related to health data and health information technologies, including those powered by or incorporating AI, may alter the competitive landscape or impose new compliance requirements and could materially and adversely …”
AI is unlikely to contest a moat that is physical, regulated or balance-sheet-funded; here it reads more as a cost tool than a threat, and the company is using it that way.
Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.
All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.
Current Position
as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.
Current assets$91.1B
- Cash & short-term investments$31.2B
- Receivables$26.6B
- Inventory$3.3B
- Other current assets$30.0B
Current liabilities$114.1B
- Debt due within a year$6.5B
- Accounts payable$38.6B
- Other current liabilities$69.0B
Current ratio0.80×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×
Quick ratio0.77×stricter: inventory excluded
Cash ratio0.27×strictest: cash alone against what's due
Working capital($23.0B)the cushion left after near-term bills
Its current ratio is below 1, which usually reads as strain; here it is likely structural strength. This business collects from customers before it pays suppliers (a negative cash-conversion cycle), so the balance sheet is funded by that float, the way Costco's and Amazon's are. The low ratio can be the edge, not the risk; the cash-conversion cycle and the debt due above say which.
Debt due this year vs. cash$6.5B due · $31.2B cash
covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet
Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago+2.0%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing
Current ratio, recent quarters0.9× → 0.8×
Deeper floors
Tangible book value($26.7B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles
Net current asset value($116.2B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities
Debt incl. operating leases$78.6B$668M of it operating leases
Deferred revenue$3.4Bcustomer cash collected before delivery; operating float
From the company's latest filing.
Debt maturity
the debt note, SEC EDGAR →Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.
Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.
Due in the next 12 months$6.1Bthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year
Within two years$9.6Bthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions
Biggest single year$6.1Bin 2026the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest
Total scheduled principal$79.4Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it
Against what the business has and earns
Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$31.2B
One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$16.1B
Together, against $6.1B due next year7.8×
Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $47.3B against the $6.1B due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 7.8 times it.
Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the balance-sheet debt.
Acquisitions & goodwill
from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow recordGoodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.
Goodwill & intangibles$131.0B42% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired
Against book equityexceeds itgoodwill alone is larger than the company’s entire book equity; stripped of the acquisition premium, there is no net book worth
Cash spent acquiring$79.7Bover 10 years buying other businesses, against $25.7B of capital spent building
None written down over the record; the goodwill is still carried at full cost. That is the deals holding their value on the books so far; whether they keep doing so is the test an owner watches, since the write-down, when it comes, is the admission the price was too high.
Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.
Management, ownership & pay
read the proxy →From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.
| Fiscal year | Pay, as filed | “Actually paid” | Owner earnings |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2021 | $18.4M | $55.5M | $19.9B |
| 2021 | $11.2M | $36.6M | $19.9B |
| 2022 | $20.9M | $31.3M | $23.4B |
| 2023 | $23.5M | $20.2M | $25.7B |
| 2024 | $26.3M | $24.2M | $20.7B |
| 2025 | $60.9M | $56.5M | $16.1B |
| 2025 | $24.6M | −$7.1M | $16.1B |
Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.
- Insider ownership<1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
- CEO pay ratio748:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
- Stock-based compensation$971M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 5% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.
What an owner would ask, FY2025
read the 10-K →- Which reported numbers are a judgment call?Management names Income taxes, Insurance reserves as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →
The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.
Peers, Managed Care
The same industry, side by side on the medical-loss-ratio lens. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.
| Company | Revenue | Medical loss ratio | Op. margin | ROE |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| UNHUnitedhealth Group Incorporated | $447.6B | 84% | 8.1% | 22% |
| CIThe Cigna Group | $274.9B | 80% | 4.9% | 13% |
| ELVElevance Health Inc. | $199.1B | 87% | 5.3% | 14% |
| CNCCentene Corporation | $194.8B | — | 2.2% | 9% |
| HUMHumana Inc. | $129.7B | 89% | 3.9% | 17% |
| MOHMolina Healthcare | $45.4B | — | 3.9% | 26% |
| OSCROscar Health | $11.7B | 85% | -14.9% | -41% |
| ALHCAlignment Healthcare | $3.9B | — | -3.9% | -69% |
| Group median | — | 85% | 3.9% | 13% |
The price
What a price has to assume.
What the price implies
reverse-DCFType today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Unitedhealth Group Incorporated has delivered.
$
Through the cycle, Unitedhealth Group Incorporated earns about $28.6B on its 6.4% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 3.6% margin runs below that; the reported figure may understate a lean year. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year.
Base
—
The assumptions
9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.
Enter a price above to run it.
A dated snapshot of the price you typed, the assumptions you set, and what the page showed for them. A snapshot is never edited after it is saved. Your notebook is yours alone — the commitment states what is stored and what we will never do.
Implied by the price—
Owner-earnings growth · ’21→’25−4%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+7%/yr
Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25+7%/yr
Owner-earnings yield—
What a growth belief costs, in multiples
The growth each return requires, at your price
P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—
P/B—
Graham’s price gate—
Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.
Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%
Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.
Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.
Owner-earnings yield—
High-grade bond yield—
Margin over the bond—
Owner earnings $19.7B on 908M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-30; net debt $46.7B. The base is the latest year by default; Normalize values it on the through-cycle median owner-earnings margin (to avoid paying on a peak year). Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.
Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Unitedhealth Group Incorporated (UNH), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/UNH, data as of 2026-07-09.
Manual order: ← UNFI its page in the Manual UNIT →
Industry order: ← TRUP the Managed Care chapter