The Layoff Club

Laid off from Cigna.

Cigna said it would cut about 2,000 jobs by the end of February 2026, under 3% of the company, describing the package only as transition services. The year before, its Evernorth arm shed clinic roles in Arizona and Morris Plains roles in New Jersey.

At a glance

What's known about Cigna severance and layoffs

  • About 2,000 roles, just under 3% · February 2026 announced reduction
  • 67,700, down 5,800 in one year · Workforce at end of 2025
  • $378 million charged, $238 million paid · Severance in 2025
  • $370 million, $33 million of it from April to June · Severance charged, January to June 2026
  • Transition services, no figures on record · Published severance terms
  • A week's pay per full year, where the act applies · New Jersey severance floor
  • 3, covering 339 jobs in Arizona and New Jersey · Cigna WARN filings tracked since 2025
  • 25, including Express Scripts, Medco Health and Accredo · Cigna WARN filings tracked, all time
  • Through 2028, first set at 2026 · Program length the company expects
  • $3 billion, through 2030 · Savings program announced September 2026

Recent Cigna layoffs

Cigna announced a $3 billion savings program in September 2026

Cigna used its September 30, 2026 investor day to announce a new $3 billion series of modernization and productivity initiatives. Those savings are meant to run through 2030 and draw partly on workforce efficiencies, the Hartford Business Journal reported, and the chief financial officer didn't discuss whether the effort could result in layoffs. The latest Cigna filing our tracker holds is still the 134-role Morris Plains notice that New Jersey lists as posted in February 2026.

Previous rounds

Cigna layoff history

Cigna announced about 2,000 job cuts in February 2026 and released almost nothing with them. The figure covered the whole company, just under 3% of the workforce, and the reduction was meant to be finished by the end of that month. The company wouldn't say which roles were affected, or how much it expected to save. Executives didn't raise the cuts on the investor call held days earlier either.

Cigna's annual report for 2025 carries figures the announcement never did. It describes a companywide effort called the Strategic Optimization Program, an enterprise-wide initiative the company started in the first quarter of 2025 covering severance and other employee costs, asset impairments, accelerated amortization, and small businesses it plans to discontinue. For 2025 that program cost $749 million before tax, including $616 million in selling, general and administrative expenses, mostly severance of $378 million and asset impairments of $101 million. The severance accrual ran from nothing at the end of 2024 to $378 million charged and $238 million paid during 2025, leaving $140 million accrued at year end. Cigna says it expects the program to continue through 2028, having expected at the start that it would end in December 2026, and that it anticipates future charges. The filing details the program by business segment in a separate note, and nothing in it says whether the February announcement or either New Jersey notice sits inside the program.

Underneath the announcements, the company got smaller. Cigna ended 2025 with 67,700 employees against 73,500 a year earlier, a drop of 5,800. A year-end headcount moves for plenty of reasons besides layoffs, so read that as the company changing size rather than a count of people cut. The entity names on the filings since 2025 are all Evernorth ones. Evernorth handles pharmacy, care and benefits work for insurers, employers, unions, hospitals and government programs, its clinic business Evernorth Care Group was the Arizona medical practice, and Cigna Evernorth Services is the entity named on the New Jersey notices.

Our tracker holds 25 Cigna filings all-time, and 3 filings covering 339 jobs since the start of 2025. Those three are Arizona and New Jersey notices. The all-time count takes in older filings made under the Express Scripts, Medco Health and Accredo names, which the tracker counts as Cigna's because Cigna owns those companies now. Two of the three recent filings are Cigna Evernorth Services notices in Morris Plains, New Jersey. The 62-role notice Patch reported in April 2025 was for Morris Plains, where Evernorth occupies half of a building on Tabor Road, and the 134-role notice New Jersey lists as posted in February 2026, with separation dates from April 29 to May 20, is the bigger of the pair. The third is the Arizona one. Evernorth Care Group told the state on November 11, 2025 that it was cutting 143 metro Phoenix roles, after HonorHealth had announced that September that it would take over 11 of the 18 Valley locations, and by January 2, 2026 HonorHealth had finalized that purchase from Cigna Healthcare of Arizona.

If you were cut in New Jersey in a layoff the state act covers, state law puts a floor underneath whatever Cigna offered. The act reaches a reduction that ends 50 or more jobs at or reporting to a single establishment within 30 days, counting part-time staff the same as full-time, so whether it caught your separation turns on facts you may not see from outside. Where it does apply, an employer of 100 or more owes 90 days of notice at minimum and a week's pay per full year of employment, with four extra weeks added where that warning ran short. The statute prices that week at whichever is larger, the average regular rate across your last three years or the final rate you were paid, which matters if your last year was a lean one. Then comes the clause worth rereading, since no waiver of the severance right takes effect unless a court or the state's labor commissioner approves it. If the act covered your separation, count the weeks yourself and hold that number against what the paperwork offers before you sign, and read the state's own summary of the 2023 changes first. No companywide Cigna severance formula is on record, so for anyone outside New Jersey the agreement itself carries the terms.

Severance charges kept coming in 2026. Cigna's report on the quarter that closed June 30 puts $370 million of severance on the books for January through June, only $33 million of which landed between April and June, next to $378 million for all of 2025. Since the program began it had charged $748 million of severance by midyear, $269 million of it still accrued and unpaid, and the company expects substantially all of that to be paid by the end of 2026. The note gives no headcount behind any of those dollars, and Cigna expects the program to continue through 2028.

At its investor day on September 30, 2026, Cigna announced a new $3 billion series of modernization and productivity initiatives, which its release describes in terms of streamlined workflows, AI-enabled tools for colleagues and disciplined supplier and vendor management. The savings are meant to come through 2030 from AI and automation, workforce efficiencies and supplier changes, the Hartford Business Journal reported, and chief financial officer Ann Dennison said the company intends to build a "future-ready workforce" with a more efficient talent base. She didn't discuss whether the initiative could result in layoffs. If you work there now, the record so far points to two places worth watching, the state WARN lists, where the New Jersey notices appeared, and the program note in Cigna's quarterly reports, where the severance charges did.

Reporting on previous Cigna layoff rounds

How Cigna's layoffs compare to other companies

Insurers announced cuts through the same stretch. Healthcare Dive counted Aetna planning to let more than 300 people go and Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield of New Jersey almost 250 alongside Cigna's 2,000. Cigna's announcement named no units. Its annual report, on a separate track, priced a companywide efficiency program at $378 million of severance charged during 2025 without tying that money to any named round.

What to do after being laid off from Cigna

  1. File for unemployment in the state where you worked. Benefits run from your filing date, and severance usually doesn't block you. Cigna's biggest hubs: Connecticut, Arizona, New Jersey. Somewhere else? Every state is here.
  2. Apply for financial and hardship assistance. Unemployment supplements income, but food benefits, health coverage and utility help are often available as well. Here's some of what Cigna's hub states run: Connecticut, Arizona, New Jersey, and every other state is here.
  3. Mind the health insurance window. Losing coverage opens a 60-day special enrollment period, and an ACA plan usually beats unsubsidized COBRA. Compare your options before the employer coverage lapses, and read how the COBRA clocks run if you are weighing it seriously.
  4. Get your real runway number. Severance plus savings divided by reality. The calculator takes five minutes.
  5. Know which clocks are already running. Severance review windows, COBRA election, visa grace periods, and 401(k) rollovers all run on federal deadlines that started at termination. All five deadlines are here.

Cigna layoff and severance questions

How many jobs is Cigna cutting in 2026?

About 2,000 across the company, a cut Cigna confirmed in February 2026 and meant to wrap up before February was out, just under 3% of the workforce. That same month New Jersey posted a Cigna Evernorth Services notice for 134 roles in Morris Plains, with separations dated April 29 to May 20, and nothing in the reporting we track places those inside or outside the 2,000. The $3 billion savings program announced September 30 names workforce efficiencies, but the chief financial officer didn't discuss whether it could result in layoffs.

What severance is Cigna offering in the 2026 layoffs?

Cigna described a package that includes a variety of transition services, and neither that report nor Healthcare Dive's gives a severance formula, weeks of pay or benefit terms. Its filings show severance moving companywide without a formula, $378 million charged during 2025 and $370 million more from January through June 2026, totals that can't be split into what any one person got. If you worked in New Jersey and the state act covered your layoff, the law sets a week's pay per full year of employment as a minimum, so if you were handed an agreement it's worth counting your own weeks against what it offers.

Which Cigna units were affected by the layoffs?

For the 2,000-role cut, Cigna declined to list the locations or positions, though it said it expected Connecticut-based roles to be a very small percentage. The filings in our tracker since 2025 all carry Evernorth names, the arm that handles pharmacy, care and benefits work. Evernorth Care Group, the medical practice division, cut 143 metro Phoenix roles in November 2025. Cigna Evernorth Services is the name on the Morris Plains, New Jersey notices, 62 roles in 2025 and 134 in 2026.

Does New Jersey require Cigna to pay severance?

For a layoff the state act covers, yes. Coverage turns on a reduction ending 50 or more jobs at or reporting to one establishment inside 30 days, with part-time staff counted the same as full-time. Where it applies, New Jersey makes an employer of 100 or more pay a week's pay per full year of employment, and four extra weeks where the employer allowed less than the 90 days of warning the law requires. The statute prices that week at whichever is larger, the average regular rate across the last three years or the final rate paid. And no waiver of the severance right takes effect unless a court or the state's labor commissioner approves it. Two of the three Cigna filings our tracker holds since 2025 are New Jersey notices, both at Morris Plains.

Is Cigna still cutting jobs in 2026?

Nothing in the reporting we track shows a Cigna round newer than February 2026, when the company confirmed about 2,000 cuts and New Jersey posted a 134-role Cigna Evernorth Services notice for Morris Plains with separations dated through May 20. The newest development is the $3 billion savings program Cigna announced on September 30, 2026, which draws partly on workforce efficiencies, though the chief financial officer didn't discuss whether it could result in layoffs. Our tracker holds no Cigna filing newer than that New Jersey notice.

Is Cigna laying off workers in Connecticut?

For the roughly 2,000 cuts in February 2026, Cigna said it expected Connecticut-based roles to be a very small percentage of those impacted, out of more than 3,000 employees based in the state, and it gave no number. None of the three Cigna filings our tracker holds since 2025 is a Connecticut notice. They're in Arizona and New Jersey.

Where do I file for unemployment after being laid off from Cigna?

In the state where you worked, not where the company is headquartered. Cigna's biggest U.S. hubs are Connecticut, Arizona, New Jersey. Severance usually doesn't block you from filing, and benefits run from your filing date, so file the same week.

Is it OK to file for unemployment after a layoff at Cigna?

Yes. Unemployment insurance is funded by payroll taxes employers pay on wages, the claim never appears on credit reports or background checks, and future employers cannot see it. If the hesitation itself is the obstacle, whether filing is OK has its own article.

What happens to my health insurance after a layoff at Cigna?

Your plan sets the end date rather than the law, so the separation packet is where that date actually lives, and it is often the last day of the month rather than your last day of work. After coverage ends, COBRA lets you keep the identical plan by paying the whole premium yourself, up to 102 percent of what the plan really costs, which lands as several times the payroll deduction you were used to. You get 60 days to elect, counted from the later of coverage ending or the election notice arriving, and electing reaches the coverage back to the day the old plan stopped so no gap exists. How continuation coverage works walks the timing, and whether to take it rather than a marketplace plan is a separate decision.

Should I sign the severance agreement right away?

First pin down how much review time you actually have. If you're 40 or older, federal law gives you 21 days to consider an agreement that waives age claims, 45 in a group layoff, and a waiver signed under a shorter deadline can be invalid. If you're under 40, no federal window applies and the deadline in your packet may be real, so confirm it in writing and ask for more time if you need it. Use whatever window you have to read the release terms, especially non-disparagement and no-lawsuit clauses, and don't stall past a real deadline, because offers can be withdrawn.

Can I collect unemployment if I got severance from Cigna?

Usually yes, though some states delay benefits until severance pay periods end, and lump sums are treated differently than salary continuation. Check your state's rules on our state benefit pages, and file immediately either way so your claim date is locked in.