Companies tighten safety after a health worry CEO’s killing leads to a surge of threats

“Wanted” posters with the names and faces of health worry executives have been popping up on the streets of recent York. Hit lists with images of bullets are circulating online with warnings that industry leaders should be afraid.

The apparent targeted killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson and the menacing threats that followed have sent a shudder through corporate America and the health worry industry in particular, leading to increased safety for executives and some workers.

In the week since the brazen shooting, health insurers have removed information about their top executives from corporation websites, canceled in-person meetings with shareholders and advised all employees to work from home temporarily.

An internal recent York Police Department bulletin warned this week that the online vitriol that followed the shooting could signal an immediate “elevated threat.”

Police terror that the Dec. 4 shooting could “inspire a variety of extremists and grievance-driven malicious actors to violence,” according to the bulletin, which was obtained by The Associated Press.

“Wanted” posters pasted to parking meters and construction site fences in Manhattan included photos of health worry executives and the words “Deny, defend, depose” — similar to a phrase scrawled on bullets found near Thompson’s body and echoing those used by insurance industry critics.

Thompson’s wife, Paulette, told NBC information last week that he told her some people had been threatening him and suggested the threats may have involved issues with insurance coverage.

Investigators depend the shooting suspect, Luigi Mangione, may have been motivated by hostility toward health insurers. They are studying his writings about a previous back injury, and his disdain for corporate America and the U.S. health worry structure.

Mangione’s lawyer has cautioned against prejudging the case. Mangione, 26, has remained jailed in Pennsylvania, where he was arrested Monday. Manhattan prosecutors are working to bring him to recent York to face a murder fee.

UnitedHealthcare’s parent corporation, UnitedHealth throng, said this week it was working with law enforcement to ensure a secure work surroundings and to reinforce safety guidelines and building access policies, a spokesperson said.

The corporation has taken down photos, names and biographies for its top executives from its websites, a spokesperson said. Other organizations, including CVS, the parent corporation for insurance giant Aetna, have taken similar actions.

Government health insurance provider Centene Corp. has announced that its investor day will be held online, rather than in-person as originally planned. Medica, a Minnesota-based nonprofit health worry firm, said last week it was temporarily closing its six offices for safety reasons and would have its employees work from home.

Heightened safety measures likely will make health worry companies and their leaders more inaccessible to their policyholders, said former Cigna executive Wendell Potter.

“And understandably so, with this act of violence. There’s no assurance that this won’t happen again,” said Potter, who’s now an advocate for health worry reform.

Private safety firms and consultants have been in high demand, fielding calls almost immediately after the shooting from companies across a range of industries, including manufacturing and finance.

Companies have long faced safety risks and grappled with how far to receive precautions for high-profile executives. But these recent threats sparked by Thompson’s killing should not be ignored, said Dave Komendat, a former safety chief for Boeing who now heads his own uncertainty-management corporation.

“The tone and tenor is different. The social reaction to this tragedy is different. And so I ponder that people require to receive this seriously,” Komendat said.

Just over a quarter of the companies in the Fortune 500 reported spending money to protect their CEOs and top executives. Of those, the median settlement for personal safety doubled over the last three years to just under $100,000.

Hours after the shooting, Komendat was on a call with dozens of chief safety officers from large corporations, and there have been many similar meetings since, hosted by safety groups or law enforcement agencies assessing the threats, he said.

“It just takes one person who is motivated by a poster — who may have experienced something in their life through one of these companies that was harmful,” Komendat said.

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Associated Press reporters Wyatte Grantham-Philips in recent York and Barbara Ortutay in San Francisco, contributed to this update.

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