Download the 2010 OC DENTAL HMO/PPO List (pdf)
Orange County’s largest dental insurers made a big comeback in the past year.
Local enrollment among the area’s 13 biggest plans grew nearly 17% to 1.8 million people, according to this week’s Business Journal list.
The list’s perennial No. 1, San Francisco-based Delta Dental of California, led the way with a 48% surge in enrollment to 732,934 local members or more than 236,000 additional members from last year’s list.
Without Delta Dental, the other 12 insurers saw a 2.2% increase to 1.1 million members, up from 1.07 million members a year earlier.
Seven of the county’s 13 largest dental plans added members. One lost members and five were Business Journal estimates.
This is Delta Dental’s fourth year at the top of the list.
The jump in enrollment comes from a number of new clients for Delta Dental, which has a local office in Cerritos, according to company spokeswoman Elizabeth Risberg.
Those clients include a fast-food chain, three technology companies that are either based in OC or have large operations here, and a health and welfare benefit trust for union members, Risberg said.
Delta took over as the OC market leader three years ago, succeeding Safeguard Dental Health Plans, a unit of New York-based MetLife Inc.
Rest of List
MetLife, now No. 2 on the list, said that it has 262,437 enrollees in Orange County. Last year, the Business Journal estimated the plan, under the Safeguard name, had 260,000 local members.
Safeguard picked up a lot of members about five years ago after buying GE Wellness Dental and Vision.
Aetna Dental, a unit of Hartford, Conn.-based Aetna Inc., continued as the list’s No. 3 plan. Aetna said it had 146,000 members.
We estimate that UnitedHealthcare Dental/PacifiCare Dental, the No. 4 plan, has 135,000 local members, flat from last year.
Cigna Dental, owned by Philadelphia-based Cigna Corp., came back as No. 5 on the list and posted a modest 2.5% enrollment gain to 125,454 local members.
The Business Journal estimates that No. 6 Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of Indianapolis-based WellPoint Inc., has 115,000 local members. This estimate is down slightly from last year’s 117,585 enrollment for Anthem Blue Cross.
The company saw a 17% spike in membership from 2008 to 2009.
Last year, the company said that increased diversity of services was attracting members.
No. 7 Guardian Life Insurance Co. of America’s dental plan membership rose nearly 5% to 100,874.
No. 8 Western Dental Services, an Orange-based plan, said its membership grew to 78,000 members, up from 75,500 last year.
United Concordia Cos. of Woodland Hills came in at No. 9 on the list with a 3% enrollment dip to 46,626 members here. It’s the only company to report a drop in members.
United Concordia declined to comment on why the drop occurred.
Golden West Dental and Vision, another unit of WellPoint, repeated at No. 10 on the list with a 1%, or 369 person, membership gain to 35,000 OC enrollees.
Another large membership gain came with No. 11 Ameritas Group Dental, which is part of UNIFI Mutual Holding Co. of Lincoln, Neb. The plan said its OC membership grew 18%, or about 4,700 people, from a year ago to 30,668.
The list’s No. 12 dental plan is Newport Dental, a unit of Santa Ana-based Smile Brands Group Inc. Newport Dental reported having 12,500 members.
In late December, Smile had filed to sell 7.35 million shares of its stock in an initial public offering and was looking to raise $130 million after expenses.
But a jittery market for IPOs was in play, leading Smile to pull its offering in late May.
Smile said in a Securities & Exchange Commission filing that it was withdrawing its proposed offering “in light of general market conditions.”
Smile, which has annual revenue of about $455 million, stood to be the biggest OC public offering since 2007, when Ensign Group Inc., a Mission Viejo nursing home company, went public and raised $64 million.
The list concludes with No. 13 Dental Health Services, which is the smallest plan but had the largest jump percentage-wise, nearly tripling its OC enrollment to 8,000 members from 2,018 a year ago. Dental Health Services is headquartered just across the county line in Long Beach.
The plan saw growth across the board, including individuals, small groups and larger clients, said Josh Nace, a Dental Health Services executive vice president.
