Covered calls on UNH

UnitedHealth Group was trading at $367.85 when this page was last refreshed on September 30, 2026. 10 out-of-the-money UNH calls sat in the 0.15 to 0.25 delta band that covered call writers work in, paying $270 to $475 a contract. 5 of them came back scored, and the app would have ranked those and shown you the top few.

Numbers on this page come from a snapshot taken on September 30, 2026. They are not live quotes and are not refreshed when you load the page.

One row per expiration: the out-of-the-money strike closest to the middle of the delta band, which is the strike you would actually be looking at on that expiry. Break-even on a covered call is your own cost basis minus the premium, not the strike minus the premium, so the column above is the strike-side break-even and yours depends on what you paid for the shares.

What the premium is priced off

40% at the money is well above a market-average tape. You get paid more here. You get paid more here because it moves more.

Can you actually get filled

Median bid-ask spread is 10.2% of the mid, widening to 14.7% on the worst strike here. Workable, but do not send a market order. Open interest runs about 371 contracts at the median strike. Enough to trade, not enough to be careless with size.

Dates that matter in this window

Earnings land inside the 45-day window. That is the one date that reliably breaks a premium-selling trade: the stock gaps, the strike you picked on a probability model turns out to have been picked on the wrong distribution, and the vol you sold collapses to reward the buyer instead of you. The engine deducts heavily for it. The stock pays about 2.5% a year, and no ex-dividend date was confirmed inside this window.

What the annualized column hides

The best annualized number in this ladder is 29.8%, on the $387.50 strike expiring October 9. It is $270 of actual cash. It annualizes well because it is a 9-day contract, and annualizing a two-week trade assumes you find twenty-six more like it, at the same premium, with the same risk. You will not.

If it gets called away

Take the $410.00 strike expiring October 30. You collect $443 up front. If UNH finishes above $410.00 your 100 shares are sold there, and the 11.5% move from $367.85 up to the strike is yours as well. Everything above it is not. The model puts the odds of keeping the premium at about 79%, so assignment on this one is a real possibility rather than a footnote.

The number nobody checks is the cost basis. If you paid more than $410.00 for these shares, that strike locks in a loss on the stock, and $443 of premium does not repair it. A covered call is only a good trade at a strike you would genuinely accept selling at.

Questions people actually ask

None of these is a pick. This is a dated snapshot of the UNH chain from September 30, 2026, and an option chain from last week is history, not a quote.

Elsewhere on UNH

• Cash-secured puts on UNH
• The wheel on UNH
• Every ticker we track

Understand the strategy

• Covered calls: the complete series
• One full covered call, end to end
• Picking a strike by delta
• What the IV above is actually telling you
• Reading the delta column three ways
• What happens if one of these is assigned
• The filters that produced a table like this one
• What the keep odds column is really claiming
• A full year of these, audited against holding
• What the tax bill looks like on a year of this
• Options basics: the foundations, in full
• How to read a chain like the table above

Run your own numbers

• Covered call calculator static return, if-called return and the cushion.
• Annualized return calculator compare a 14-day trade against a 45-day one.
• Assignment probability calculator the odds behind a strike.
• Roll analyzer for when the stock runs through you.