PacifiCare is the first health care services company to sign a national contract with BenefitPoint. In addition, PacifiCare Behavioral Health, a PacifiCare Health Systems subsidiary, is the first managed behavioral health care company to become a BenefitPoint contracted carrier. PacifiCare expects to roll out the BenefitPoint application across its sales and service organization operations in eight Western states.

"We look forward to using the BenefitPoint system to more closely align our organization's procurement and communication workflows with our key broker partners," said Brad Bowlus, executive vice president of PacifiCare Health Systems and president and chief executive officer of PacifiCare Health Plans. "BenefitPoint provides an efficient platform for the entire employee benefits distribution channel, enabling our company and brokers to serve employers in real time for the management of most aspects of the employee benefits lifecycle."

"We believe the Internet is a key component in our strategy to become a more diversified health and consumer services company dedicated to making people's lives better," Bowlus continued. "The Internet can provide an effective medium to more efficiently transact business among brokers, employers and employees. BenefitPoint gives us a tool to more efficiently market, transact and retain our prospective and existing customer base."

"PacifiCare is recognized as a company that is willing to invest in new technologies and ways of doing business to drive its business," said Mark A. Pulido, chairman, president and chief executive officer of BenefitPoint. "We are pleased to partner with an industry leader such as PacifiCare. We look forward to helping them use BenefitPoint to achieve optimal efficiency and increased revenues."

About PacifiCare Health Systems, Inc.
Dedicated to making people's lives better, PacifiCare Health Systems is one of the nation's largest health care services companies. Primary operations include health insurance products for employer groups and Medicare beneficiaries in eight states and Guam, serving approximately 3.7 million members. Other specialty products and operations include behavioral health services, life and health insurance, dental and vision services and pharmacy benefit management. More information on PacifiCare Health Systems can be obtained at www.pacificare.com.

About BenefitPoint, Inc.
BenefitPoint, Inc., delivers the leading Internet-based employee benefits infrastructure for the distribution and management of group insurance and financial products. As the central nervous system of the employee benefits industry, BenefitPoint provides a complete set of B2B services enabling benefits professionals to manage the entire group health insurance and benefits lifecycle. Building on the existing industry relationships among carriers, brokers, employers, and employees, the BenefitPoint solution combines the efficiency of the Internet with the established distribution model of the insurance industry to eliminate paper (saving everyone time and money), to make it possible to deliver more products and services (giving everyone more choices), and to make better information available (enabling everyone to make better decisions).

Since general availability in February 2000, BenefitPoint has received widespread industry adoption from regional and national insurance carriers as well as from more than 120 of the leading U.S.-based brokerage and consulting firms. The company, headquartered in San Francisco, CA, can be reached at 415.277.5600 or at www.benefitpoint.com. BenefitPoint, Inc. is privately held.