Centene stock was tumbling on Friday after ballooning medical costs led to the health insurer reporting a surprise quarterly loss.
Shares dropped 10% to $23.99 ahead of the opening bell. Futures tracking the S&P 500 were up 0.1%.
The selloff came after Centene reported a second-quarter adjusted loss of 16 cents a share, even as revenue jumped 22% from a year ago to $48.7 billion. Analysts were expecting a profit of 11 cents a share on revenue of $44.1 billion, according to a FactSet poll.
The company’s health benefits ratio, which tracks the proportion of its premiums it pays out to cover medical expenses, surged to 93% from 87.6% a year ago. The higher that figure is, the higher a health insurer’s costs are.
Analysts were expecting Centene to report a health benefits ratio of 91.3%.
It’s the latest blow in a nightmarish year for health insurers. Centene pulled its financial guidance earlier this month, citing weak data it had seen on the insurance plans it sells on the Affordable Care Act exchanges.
The company’s earnings come just a day after fellow health insurer UnitedHealth Group said it was “complying with formal criminal and civil requests” from the Department of Justice, which sparked a selloff in UnitedHealth shares.
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