WellPoint, Inc. Honored by the National Business Group on Health With Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles® Award

WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP) announces it has been honored by the National Business Group on Health, a non-profit association of large U.S. employers, for its ongoing commitment and dedication to promoting a healthy workplace and encouraging its employees and their families to pursue and maintain healthy lifestyles. This marks the sixth year in a row that WellPoint has received an award from the National Business Group on Health and the second year honored at the highest level, Platinum.

WellPoint was among 65 U.S. employers that received the 2013 Best Employers for Healthy Lifestyles® award at the Leadership Summit sponsored by the National Business Group on Health’s Institute on Innovation in Workforce Well-being. WellPoint received a Platinum Award for its flexible employee wellness incentive program that includes a three-year wellness incentive strategy that first rewarded awareness and now focuses on results. The first year, WellPoint offered a $200 wellness credit toward health benefits for simply completing a health assessment. The second year, employees and their partners could earn up to $400 with some of the credit tied to participating in wellness programs, including a fitness challenge. In the third year, employees had earning potential of $600 in credits towards their health benefits with a portion of the credit tied to being in a healthy range or demonstrating health improvement.

“We understand that our employees’ journey to health and wellness is a personal one and we designed our program to meet them wherever they are in that journey to better health,” said Randy Brown, WellPoint executive vice president and chief human resources officer. “Our program has proven results – our rate of obesity dropped 8 percent, we lowered our rate of high blood pressure by 42 percent and high cholesterol by 15 percent and 14 percent of our employees who had a BMI of more than 30 dropped it below 30 or lost 5 percent of their body weight within a year – proving that WellPoint employees and their families are making healthier lifestyle choices.”

“We are proud to honor WellPoint for its ongoing commitment to providing lifestyle improvement programs that encourage healthy lifestyles for their employees,” said Helen Darling, president and CEO of the National Business Group on Health. “WellPoint is among an elite group of organizations that are leading the way to promoting healthy workplaces and lifestyles. WellPoint and its management team should be proud of their commitment to their program and we congratulate them on receiving this award.”

Winners of the “BestEmployers for Healthy Lifestyles®” awards were honored in one of two categories: Platinum, for established healthy weight, healthy lifestyles programs with measurable success and documented outcomes; or Gold, for creating cultural and environmental changes that support employees who are committed to long-term behavior changes.

About WellPoint, Inc.

At WellPoint, we believe there is an important connection between our members’ health and well-being—and the value we bring our customers and shareholders. So each day we work to improve the health of our members and their communities. And, we can make a real difference since we have nearly 36 million people in our affiliated health plans, and nearly 68 million people served through our subsidiaries. As an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, WellPoint serves members as the Blue Cross licensee for California; and as the Blue Cross and Blue Shield licensee for Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri (excluding 30 counties in the Kansas City area), Nevada, New Hampshire, New York (as the Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in 10 New York City metropolitan and surrounding counties and as the Blue Cross or Blue Cross Blue Shield licensee in selected upstate counties only), Ohio, Virginia (excluding the Northern Virginia suburbs of Washington, D.C.), and Wisconsin. In a majority of these service areas, WellPoint’s plans do business as Anthem Blue Cross, Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Georgia and Empire Blue Cross Blue Shield, or Empire Blue Cross (in the New York service areas). We also serve customers in several additional states through our Amerigroup subsidiary and in certain markets through our CareMore subsidiary. Our 1-800 CONTACTS, Inc. subsidiary offers customers online sales of contact lenses, eyeglasses and other ocular products. Additional information about WellPoint is available at www.wellpoint.com.

About the National Business Group on Health

The National Business Group on Health is the nation's only non-profit, membership organization of large employers devoted exclusively to finding innovative and forward-thinking solutions to their most important health care and related benefits issues and to being the voice for large employers on national health care issues. The Business Group, whose 363 members include 66 of the Fortune 100, identifies, develops and shares best practices in health benefits, disability, health and productivity, related paid time off and work/life balance issues. Business Group members provide health coverage for more than 55 million U.S. workers, retirees and their families. For more information, visit www.businessgrouphealth.org.