Shares of UnitedHealth Group, the largest health insurance company in the U.S., surged nearly 6% on Tuesday morning after the company provided an update on the extensive cyberattack it experienced earlier this year.
In its second quarterly earnings report, UnitedHealth announced that most affected services at its subsidiary Change Healthcare, a medical record and payment manager, have been restored.
The company disclosed that the cyberattack’s impact in the second quarter amounted to $0.92 per share. To date, UnitedHealth has offered over $9 billion in advance funding and interest-free loans to support impacted healthcare providers.
These financial support measures and the costs of notifying affected customers have led UnitedHealth to increase its financial estimate of the cyberattack’s impact to between $1.90 to $2.05 per share for the full year.
Despite this, UnitedHealth reaffirmed its adjusted net earnings outlook of $27.50 to $28.00 per share, expressing confidence in its ability to absorb the associated costs.
For the quarter ending June 30, the company reported $98.9 billion in revenue, exceeding Wall Street expectations of $98.7 billion, according to FactSet.
“During the quarter, we prioritized devoting resources to support care providers in the wake of the cyberattack over some activities such as share repurchase,” said UnitedHealth President and Chief Financial Officer John Franklin Rex during a call with investors on Tuesday. “It was the right thing to do, devoting all of our efforts to provide stability for the health system.”
In February, the ransomware group ALPHV breached Change Healthcare, causing delays in prescriptions and paychecks for healthcare workers.
In a previous update, UnitedHealth indicated that a preliminary review found files containing protected health information and personally identifiable information, potentially affecting a substantial portion of the American population.
UnitedHealth’s net income for the three months ending June 30 fell 22% to $4.2 billion, compared to $5.5 billion in the same period the previous year.
The company’s revenue increased 6% year-over-year to $98.9 billion from $93 billion. Earnings per share were $6.80, surpassing Wall Street expectations of $6.66, based on a consensus estimate from analysts surveyed by FactSet.