Health Care Service Corporation Named a 2018 World's Most Ethical Company for Third Consecutive Year

CHICAGO, Feb. 12, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Health Care Service Corporation (HCSC), the nation's largest customer-owned health insurer, has been recognized by the Ethisphere Institute for the third consecutive year as a World's Most Ethical Company® for its commitment to measuring and improving culture, leading authenticity, transparency, diversity and inclusion.

The Ethisphere Institute, a global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices, honored HCSC for its role in driving positive change for its members and the communities it serves. The recognition leverages HCSC's values and a culture of integrity in the decisions the organization makes every day. In 2018, 135 honorees were recognized, spanning 23 countries and 57 industries. The twelfth class of honorees had record levels of involvement with their stakeholders and their communities around the world.

"Our members trust us with their health care coverage," said Paula Steiner, president and chief executive officer, HCSC. "In a complex, multi-stakeholder business 'doing the right thing' may not be obvious on the surface, so we're always finding new ways to learn and ultimately become better stewards."

In 2017, HCSC continued to build on the success of its animated video series "Tom Talks," featuring Tom Lubben, chief ethics and compliance offer at HCSC, by addressing issues relevant to management. HCSC also launched a new "Life in a Cube" series to help managers talk with employees about ethics and compliance issues. Employee feedback was invited through an internal discussion board dedicated to engaging employees in conversation on ethics and compliance issues and key learnings.

"It can be hard to distinguish between myth and fact when it comes to compliance, and by educating employees in engaging, even fun, ways across multiple channels, we can help dispel misguided notions through an approachable format," said Lubben. "It doesn't matter how much material you put out there, it can only make an impact if people engage with and relate to it and if we live it every day. Our video series is versatile and demonstrates measurable results through employee engagement."

HCSC's other notable achievement includes its "Speak Up" campaign, which helped simplify the process employees should follow when bringing forward an integrity question or concern into four basic steps. These steps became the high-level performance objectives used to measure the effectiveness of ethics and compliance training and communications. Guidance for following these steps is provided through web-based training, videos, social media tools and in-person events.

The World's Most Ethical Companies assessment is based upon the Ethisphere Institute's Ethics Quotient (EQ) framework, which offers a quantitative way to assess a company's performance in an objective, consistent and standardized manner. The information collected provides a comprehensive sampling of definitive criteria of core competencies rather than all aspects of corporate governance, risk, sustainability, compliance and ethics.

"While the discourse around the world changed profoundly in 2017, a stronger voice emerged. Global corporations operating with a common rule of law are now society's strongest force to improve the human condition. This year we saw companies increasingly finding their voice. The World's Most Ethical Companies in particular continued to show exemplary leadership," said Timothy Erblich, chief executive officer, Ethisphere Institute. "I congratulate everyone at HCSC for being recognized as one of the World's Most Ethical Companies."

The full list of the 2018 World's Most Ethical Companies can be found at https://www.worldsmostethicalcompanies.com/honorees/. More information on HCSC's approach to ethics and compliance can be found at http://www.hcsc.com/our-impact/ethics.

About Health Care Service Corporation
Health Care Service Corporation is the country's largest customer-owned health insurer and fourth largest health insurer overall, with nearly 15 million members in its Blue Cross and Blue Shield plans in Illinois, Montana, New Mexico, Oklahoma and Texas. A Mutual Legal Reserve Company, HCSC is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association. HCSC has a rating of A+ (Strong) from Standard and Poor's, A1 (Good) from Moody's and A (Excellent) from A.M. Best Company. For more information, please visit HCSC.com, visit our Facebook page or follow us at www.twitter.com/HCSC. 

About the Ethisphere Institute
The Ethisphere® Institute is the global leader in defining and advancing the standards of ethical business practices that fuel corporate character, marketplace trust and business success. Ethisphere has deep expertise in measuring and defining core ethics standards using data-driven insights that help companies enhance corporate character and measure and improve culture. Ethisphere honors superior achievement through its World's Most Ethical Companies recognition program and provides a community of industry experts with the Business Ethics Leadership Alliance (BELA). More information about Ethisphere can be found at: https://ethisphere.com.

SOURCE Health Care Service Corporation

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