UnitedHealth’s Rising Expenses Raise Concerns for Investors

UnitedHealth Group Inc.’s rising expenses spooked investors Friday, overshadowing a boost to the company’s full-year profit expectations.

The largest US health insurer said its medical-loss ratio for the first quarter, a closely watched metric of expenses, was 82.2%, slightly better than the rate of 82.4% predicted by analysts. But excluding timing effects, the core measure increased by 0.5 percentage points from a year ago, analysts said.

“This could raise some concern regarding 2023 trend,” SVB Securities analyst Whit Mayo wrote in a research note.

UnitedHealth executives said medical-care patterns were in line with recent trends.

The shares fell as ...