Aetna, an American insurance firm that primarily sells healthcare insurance products and services, was founded in 1853 in Hartford, Connecticut. Eliphalet Adams and Karen S. Lynch were the company’s key founders. Aetna has a widespread network of over 22 million members providing medical services, 12 million members providing dental services and over 13 million members providing pharmaceutical services. The company also has 1,200,000 healthcare professionals, more than 690,000 doctors and specialists, as well as over 5,700 hospitals in its network.

Throughout the 1800s, Aetna Incorporation has achieved several milestones and has come a long way in the medical insurance business. Some notable achievements that Aetna has managed to accomplish during that period include issuing life insurance policies with dividend payouts in 1861 and increasing the volume of business to 600 percent in 1864.

In the 2000s, however, the company hired John Rowe, an American businessman and physician, as Chief Executive Officer and executive chairman. Rowe managed to increase the profitability of the company by cutting 15,000 jobs, raising insurance premiums by 16 percent per year, and reducing the customer base from 19 million members to 13 million members in 2002. In 2007, Aetna decided to expand its business by foraying into Medicaid as well as the State Children’s Health Insurance Program.

In 2015, the company acquired Humana, a non-profit health insurance company in Kentucky, for $37 billion. Similarly, in 2012, Aetna partnered with Inova Health System to jointly create the Innovation Health Insurance Company. By the end of 2017, CVS Health announced the acquisition of Aetna and completed the acquisition by November 2018.