UnitedHealth Group CEO Andrew Witty took home $18.4 million in total compensation last year, according to the company's latest proxy filing.
The filing, submitted Friday to the Securities and Exchange Commission, says Witty's base salary was nearly $1.5 million and that he earned $10.8 million in stock awards. In addition, his compensation includes $3.6 million in option awards and nearly $2.6 million in nonequity incentive plan compensation.
All other compensation totaled $57,024, according to the filing.
Witty's 2021 compensation is up from what he earned in both 2020 and 2019. He stepped into the role of CEO in February last year, replacing David Wichmann, who retired.
The median employee at UnitedHealth Group earned $61,379 in 2021, for a CEO pay ratio of 301:1.
Witty earned $12.8 million in total compensation in 2020, with most of that pay coming in stock awards ($8 million) and option awards ($2.7 million). Witty's salary for the year was just $418,846 as he took a leave of absence from the company for much of the year to assist the World Health Organization in developing a vaccination for COVID-19.
In 2019, as CEO of UnitedHealth's Optum subsidiary, Witty took home $16.5 million in total compensation, which included a $1.1 million salary and $9.4 million in stock awards.
Wichmann, Witty's predecessor at UnitedHealth, took home $11.2 million in total compensation for 2021. He earned a salary of $393,077 in his final two months as the company's CEO. When Wichmann retired, he earned two years worth of salary and bonuses, UnitedHealth disclosed last year.