Editorial: University’s failure to disclose Aon Hewitt settlement erodes trust

Two years ago, it was announced that the UC Student Health Insurance Plan – the system-wide health insurance program that all 10 University of California campuses are required to be a part of – was $57 million in debt.

Naturally, this eye-popping number led to more finger pointing than actual solutions with the University claiming that Aon Hewitt, the management company hired to provide logistical and pricing data for the program had massively underquoted the original prices of the premiums since the plan’s inception.

The University sued, and last Monday, a settlement was finally reached between the two entities – an act which ended any legal proceedings, and with it, any chance to shed some light on what caused the University to lose such a massive quantity of money. These details will remain elusive, since according to the terms of the settlement, the University is not allowed to disclose details about it.

This essentially ensures that the only sure losers here are the students. Without clear details about what actually happened, students will never know who exactly to hold responsible for this egregious mismanagement of an extremely important University program.

Premiums have been raised since that time to meet the operational deficit, and UC SHIP is still a good value relative to its peers. But that’s not the point.

This board understands the legal implications of releasing sealed information, and that those interested in holding the University accountable may have to reconcile the fact that they may never know what exactly happened. However, the impetus now falls on the UC to address the matter in a way that’s far more transparent than what they have been offering.

Essentially, the University has released nothing but the bare minimum. In a statement to The Bruin, the UC merely said that the University would “not to be commenting” other than to say that the matter was settled.

In the wake of this legal debris lies more questions than answers – who was responsible? Was it Aon Hewitt? How did the University not run its own analysis and find the price mistakes sooner?

Now, we’ll never know what happened and if the University has instituted any changes to prevent similar costly mismanagement from happening again.

These are all questions that will never be answered under this agreement, which is truly sad.

Even if full disclosure wasn’t possible, an admission of some kind of fault – something that students could point to and say was responsive to their concerns – would have been better than this.

The monetary loss here is significant – but ultimately not as important as the trust eroded in the University.