Ethics & Integrity

Integrity is the foundation of everything we do at Anthem. It is fundamental to our mission of improving lives and communities and simplifying healthcare. We are committed to promoting a culture of trust and accountability while achieving Anthem’s strategic objectives. “Empowering Anthem to do the right thing” is ingrained in our culture, as evidenced by our continually exceeding benchmarking scores for integrity.

Icon Goals Our Goals

  • Ensure that our Ethics, Compliance and Privacy Plan aligns with our customers’ best interests, allowing us to engage with them actively and deliver breakthrough performance in an ethical manner.
  • Enable Anthem’s growth and mitigate risk to encourage innovation with the right talent.

Icon Comprehensive A Comprehensive Approach

Anthem’s Ethics, Compliance and Privacy Plan

Anthem’s Ethics, Compliance and Privacy Plan focuses on continual improvement and doing the right thing for our members, customers and regulators. The plan is designed to ensure that we have an effective program for preventing, detecting and resolving issues of noncompliance. Our program and culture focus on promoting and celebrating ethical decision-making. An organization’s culture is directly connected to the strength and effectiveness of its compliance program. The elements of ours are designed to give Anthem associates the knowledge, tools and principles to perform their jobs ethically, identify potential compliance issues, report suspected or known noncompliance and prevent and detect fraud, waste and abuse.

Anthem’s Compliance Organizational Structure

  • Compliance Business Advisory Teams. These teams serve as trusted, strategic advisors, providing subject-matter expertise and consulting services and focusing on supporting business growth.
  • Centers of Expertise. These centers provide consolidated compliance services, solutions and support across Anthem.

Compliance Risk Management

Anthem has established effective systems for monitoring, oversight and auditing to ensure compliance with all applicable federal and state standards, as well as with internal policies and procedures. Our Ethics, Compliance and Privacy team members collaborate with Internal Audit, Enterprise Risk Management and other stakeholders to evaluate areas of risk and ensure that appropriate monitoring of critical processes is conducted. These efforts include evaluating the effectiveness of mitigation and remediation plans and corrective action plans arising from performance deficiencies. Periodically, compliance and regulatory risks are assessed and adjusted as needed.

Inquiries and Investigations

At Anthem, our associates are our most valuable resource in making our Ethics, Compliance and Privacy program successful. We consistently look for ways to empower them to identify and report concerns, and to ensure recognition when they do the right thing. Associates can anonymously report concerns through Anthem’s Ethics and Compliance HelpLine 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. The HelpLine is operated by an external partner, ensuring confidentiality. Associates can also report concerns anonymously via an online form accessed from any mobile device. Other reporting mechanisms include email, mail and phone calls with members of the Ethics team. The Ethics team answers associates’ questions and handles any investigations resulting from these reports. Anthem is committed to and accountable for responding to every inquiry and investigation, and we measure our performance and benchmark it against the performance of other companies to help ensure that our program is effective.

Icon associates Our Associates

Anthem chose Integrity as a core value to foster a culture centered on trust and accountability, in which all associates do the right thing each day, with integrity and in the spirit of excellence, for our company, consumers and business partners. This means each associate has the tools needed to act ethically and comply with Anthem’s standards at all times.

All associates are expected to read Anthem’s Code of Conduct, a valuable guide to ethical decision-making, covering issues that may arise with fellow associates, consumers, customers, vendors, competitors and the general public. Associates are expected to report suspected violations and to cooperate in company investigations. Anthem takes all reports seriously, and retaliation for good-faith reporting is strictly prohibited.

Anthem Code of Conduct Training 2020 2019 2018
Associate Completion Rate 99.99% 100% 100%
Anthem Code of Conduct

Icon human rights Human Rights

Anthem supports the basic, fundamental rights of all human beings. In addition to following applicable laws, our company practices and policies—including our policies on equal employment, harassment-free workplace, community support, anti-corruption, hiring practices, code of conduct and workplace safety—promote a culture where individuals are respected and their human rights protected.

These policies extend to our suppliers, who we expect to uphold the same level of respect for humans. Through our supplier code of conduct, they agree to labor practices that include fair labor practices, freedom from harassment, ensured basic human rights and more. Anthem and its affiliates are committed to operating with the highest integrity in a manner consistent with the United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Labor Organization’s Fundamental Conventions.

If we become aware that any party to our business transactions is denying basic human rights, we must report the concern. Denied human rights can include lack of access to food and water, forced labor, child labor and other illegal and/or unethical activities. Violations and concerns must be reported to the Anthem Ethics and Compliance HelpLine at: