Investors reacted with surprise to WellPoint Inc.’s choice of hospital executive Joseph R. Swedish as its new chief executive, sending the company’s shares down 4.6% Wednesday as many scrambled to learn more about the incoming leader of the second-largest health insurer.
Mr. Swedish, 61 years old, is well-known in the hospital industry, where he is a longtime presence and was chief executive of 47-hospital Catholic operator Trinity Health—and had been moving toward consummating a merger that would have made him the CEO of the fifth-largest chain in the U.S., with 82 hospitals. But Mr. Swedish hasn’t previously run a health-insurance