Brian Thompson’s murder has already prompted other insurance companies to make a major mass decision

After the Brian Thompson debacle, it’s clear we’re living in the worst nightmare of a member of an insurance company’s C-suite.

On Nov. 4, a still-unidentified hooded man waited outside Hilton Midtown at 6:48 am, where Brian Thompson, the CEO of UnitedHealthcare, was staying. As soon as Thompson stepped out of the hotel, the man shot him multiple times and fled on an electric bike into Central Park, where he evaded capture. Since then, the manhunt has begun, but what’s particularly surprising to authorities, the media, and even insurance companies themselves is how many people are not mourning the killing.

The story is grim all around, and while it would be easy to demonize those on social media who are celebrating this death, it’s also prudent to acknowledge that the conduct of insurance companies in America has not exactly endeared them to the public. The story of Thompson’s murder seemingly reached fever pitch when police at the crime scene found two of the three shell casings, engraved with the words depose and delay. Conspiracy theories on Reddit quickly tied the killing to Jay M. Feinman’s book Delay, Deny, Defend: Why Insurance Companies Don’t Pay Claims and What to Do About It. One user on X even compared the situation to one of the best Denzel Washington films, John Q., where a father holds a hospital hostage to secure a life-saving transplant for his son.

In response, insurance companies appear to be scrambling to protect their leadership. Pop Base announced that several companies have removed leadership pages listing their executives’ names and faces from their official websites. Meanwhile, CNN reports that UnitedHealth Group, headquartered in Minnesota, has significantly increased security at its offices in Minnesota, Washington D.C., and New York City.

While these might seem like logical steps, perhaps insurance executives should take a moment to reflect on why the killing of their colleague is being celebrated in some corners of the internet. Glorifying violence is never acceptable — no matter how wronged someone feels, violence should never be the answer. Dialogue and negotiation should always prevail. However, it seems that many people have grown frustrated, feeling that their complaints and grievances are always ignored. This tragedy highlights the dangerous place society finds itself in when people feel their voices no longer matter.

Some insurance companies appear to be considering the root causes of public outrage rather than just beefing up security. On the same day Thompson was tragically murdered, Blue Cross Blue Shield faced backlash over an unrelated announcement: plans to cap the duration of anesthesia coverage and impose additional costs if patients exceeded the cap. Unsurprisingly, people began pointing to this policy as another example of why public anger at insurance executives is boiling over. When users grimly started posting images of Blue Cross Blue Shield’s CEO, the company quickly backtracked, attributing the uproar to “widespread misinformation” about their updated policy in a statement to CNN.

It’s a tragedy for everyone involved that such an act of violence occurred in the first place. But perhaps the greater tragedy is that someone even felt this was what it took to make their voice heard.