CIGNA Receives President’s Award from the Institute for Health and Productivity Management

ORLANDO, Fla. - Health service company CIGNA (NYSE:CI) yesterday received the President’s Award from the Institute for Health and Productivity Management (IHPM) at the organization’s Ninth Annual International Health and Productivity Conference in Orlando, Fla. This is the seventh time that IHPM has presented this award, which is given each year to a health plan, health care professional or organization that demonstrates leadership and innovation in health and productivity management.

“As a health service company, CIGNA understands that employee health and productivity are two sides of the same coin, and both are equally important to a company’s success,” said David Cordani, CIGNA president and chief operating officer. “That’s why CIGNA places so much emphasis on programs that help people get and stay healthy and improve workplace productivity.”

“CIGNA’s corporate commitment to helping its customers improve the health and productivity of their work force is the kind of market leadership that our President’s Award was created to recognize,” said Sean Sullivan, president and CEO of IHPM.

Some of the ways that CIGNA helps employers improve health and productivity include:

* Coaching-based lifestyle management programs for tobacco cessation, weight loss and stress.
* An award-winning Employee Assistance Program (EAP) that helps employees manage stress and develop a healthy work/life balance, and saves them an average of 6 ½ hours when they need help finding child care, elder care and other services.1
* Vocational rehabilitation and return-to-work programs that help people return to work safely after recovering from a disabling illness or injury.
* A toolkit and financial modeler that enables employers to quantify their opportunity for health and productivity improvement. The tool also provides an employer’s C-suite executives with information about realistic savings opportunities to support, create and execute a successful human performance plan.

Health and productivity are serious issues for today’s employers. A 2008 CIGNA survey revealed that three-fifths (61 percent) of U.S. workers came to work while they were sick or coping with family and personal matters. On average, they did this nearly seven days within six months – more than twice as often as they missed work. Moreover, 62 percent admitted they were less productive on those days they came to work too distracted to perform their best.

“When employees are sick, stressed or distracted, productivity suffers; and when productivity suffers, the business suffers,” Cordani said. “There’s nothing more important to the success of a business than workplace programs that emphasize healthy bodies and healthy minds.”