2 Nonprofit Mass. Health Insurers Retain Board Pay

Massachusetts’ second- and third-largest health insurers said Thursday that they will continue to pay five-figure annual stipends to members of their boards, the Boston Herald and The Boston Globe report.

Harvard Pilgrim Health Care and Tufts Health Plan said in separate statements Thursday that they would not follow the state’s other nonprofit insurers, Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Massachusetts and Fallon Community Health Plan, in dropping board pay.

Harvard Pilgrim said its board members logged a collective 2,000 hours of work last year and that the firm’s governance “is advanced by the recruitment and retention of experienced, independent, reasonably compensated directors.”

Martha Coakley, the state attorney general, said she was “disappointed” by the decision and that the two insurers had failed to adequately justify the fees when “the overwhelming majority” of nonprofit board members volunteer their time and skills. Ms. Coakley is conducting a review of board pay at all the nonprofit insurers in Massachusetts.