Elevance Health, Inc., together with its subsidiaries, operates as a health benefits company in the United States. The company operates in four segments: Health Benefits, CarelonRx, Carelon Services, and Corporate & Other. It offers a variety of health plans and services to individual, employer group risk-based and fee-based, BlueCard, Medicare, Medicaid, and FEP members; health products; a broad array of …
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Competitive advantage assessment
Key strengths
Margins Consistently Above PeersGross margin at 25.6% (top 0%) and operating margin at 4.1% (top 11%) indicate strong pricing power.
Margins Stable Across CyclesOperating margin volatility is low (stability score 0.89), demonstrating pricing resilience across cycles.
Pricing power is the ability to raise prices without losing volume.
Cost Advantage
Score 67
· 15% of the moat score
A cost advantage means delivering the same product for structurally less — better purchasing, denser distribution, a more automated process.
Customer Stickiness
Score 56
· 15% of the moat score
Stickiness is what makes revenue repeat without being re-won every year.
Capital Efficiency
Score 93
· 18% of the moat score
Capital efficiency asks what the company earns on the money tied up in the business.
Resilience
Score 55
· 17% of the moat score
Resilience is the capacity to get through a bad year on its own terms — enough liquidity, enough interest cover, and enough cash generation to avoid a rescue financing or a forced sale.
Scale & Market Position
Score 60
· 15% of the moat score
Scale matters only when it converts into economics.
Elevance Health, Inc. (ELV) scores 74 out of 100 on the StatsAlpha Moat Map, which rates its competitive advantage as moderate. It ranks #1 of 11 scored companies in Healthcare Plans, the top 9%. The score is a weighted composite of 6 competitive defenses, each measured against industry peers of 10 companies in Healthcare Plans. Its strongest defense is Capital Efficiency (93/100) and its weakest is Resilience (55/100).
How does Elevance Health, Inc. compare with other Healthcare Plans companies?
Elevance Health, Inc. ranks #1 of 11 scored companies in Healthcare Plans by moat score. That is the widest moat in Healthcare Plans. The companies ranked closest are The Cigna Group (CI) at 73 just below it.
How is the moat score calculated?
Each company is scored with an industry-specific template — Corporate Default in this case, chosen because the defenses that matter to a bank are not the ones that matter to a software company. Every defense combines several financial signals, and each signal is measured as a percentile against a peer group of 10 companies in Healthcare Plans. The defenses are then weighted to produce the overall score out of 100.
Why is Elevance Health, Inc. scored with the Corporate Default template?
Most public companies sell a product or a service at a margin, so the moat question is whether that margin survives contact with competitors. The Corporate template scores the six defenses that show up in a general operating company's financial signature: whether it can hold price, produce more cheaply than rivals, keep its customers, earn a return above its cost of capital, withstand a downturn, and turn size into economics.
Which competitive defenses are measured for Elevance Health, Inc.?
The Corporate Default template measures 6 defenses, and ELV scores: Pricing Power (88), Cost Advantage (67), Customer Stickiness (56), Capital Efficiency (93), Resilience (55), Scale & Market Position (60). Each is scored independently as a percentile against peers, so a company can be strong on one and weak on another — the overall score reflects how those defenses are weighted for this industry.
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