Striving to make a difference and affect many people in a positive way, Susan C. Morisato served as the president of UnitedHealthcare Medicare & Retirement Insurance Solutions since 2009, until her retirement in 2019. Beginning her career as an actuarial student with Aetna Life & Casualty in Hartford, Connecticut, in 1977, she continued her training and joined Bankers Life and Casualty Company in Chicago as an actuarial assistant in 1979. She then moved up the ranks from assistant actuary to numerous other roles including associate actuary, health product actuary, vice president, senior vice president and member on the board of directors. She became the chief operating officer of senior and retiree services at ovations with UnitedHealthcare from 2005 to 2007, Ms. Morisato was president of federal programs at United Health Group Alliances for two years.
Earning support from her family, Ms. Morisato attended the University of Illinois, where she obtained a Bachelor of Science in 1975 and Master of Science in 1977. A diplomate of the Society of Actuaries, she chose health care because it was an incredibly challenging and fascinating area, where she felt she could assist vulnerable individuals. Since graduating, she has gone on to speak in front of an individual forum sponsored by the America’s Health Insurance Plans in 1983, workshop leader and conference speaker at Society of Actuaries Meetings in 1990, 1993, 2001 and 2002, and the American Association Medicare Supplement Insurance Industry Conference between 2012 and 2013.
Outside of her primary duties, Ms. Morisato was a trustee of the Minnesota Zoo Foundation from 2005 to 2012, as well as chair of the financial committee and treasurer of the foundation’s board from 2010 to 2014. Additionally, she was a founding member on the development advisory board of the Department of Mathematics at the University of Illinois between 2010 and 2014, became a founding member of the University of Illinois Actuarial Science Board in 2018 and board member of the University of Illinois LAS Alumni Council . She has also excelled as a news editor for the health news section of the Society of Actuaries publication from 1988 to 1990. Ms. Morisato’s accomplishments are highlighted in the fourth edition of Who’s Who of Emerging Leaders in America, as well as several editions of Who’s Who in America, Who’s Who in the Midwest and Who’s Who in the World.
The recipient of the Founders Award from America’s Health Insurance Plans in 1996, Ms. Morisato was named among the Women Worth Watching by the Diversity Journal in 2009, and was awarded the Greg O’Neill Vision & Integity Award by What’s Next in 2019. Since her retirement, she will use her free time volunteering with nonprofit organizations. She has fulfilled the dogma that her parents instilled in her as a child that as long as she remained confident, she could become whatever she wanted to be, even if it was not the most traditional discipline for women at the time.