Health insurer Aetna to offer customer & employee discounts on Apple Watch
Aetna will be giving both its workers and some customers discounts on the Apple Watch, the U.S. health insurance giant said on Tuesday in a joint announcement with Apple.
The company's own workforce of nearly 50,000 people will be eligible to get Watches for free. Bloomberg reported that businesses contracting with Aetna will have to decide on their own whether to adopt the wearable, and if so, how it'll be subsidized.
To this Aetna added that it's currently developing apps for Apple products that will serve a number of purposes, from reminding people to take medicines through ordering refills, checking insurance benefits, and paying bills via the Wallet app. It's not clear if that will include Apple Pay, but in any case, the new apps should be ready sometime in 2017.
Apple is likely to benefit not just from immediate sales but further tying people into its ecosystem, possible sales to other insurers, and carving out a bigger niche in the corporate fitness tracker market.
That space has so far been controlled by Fitbit, which for three years has been selling trackers to businesses wanting to cut down on insurance costs by encouraging more exercise. Aetna in fact claimed that it's the first major U.S. healthcare firm to subsidize most or all of the Watch's cost.
Apple just recently launched the Series 2, an upgrade of the Watch with waterproofing and built-in GPS. Series 1 models are also available, simply upgrading the original Watch with a faster processor.
The company's own workforce of nearly 50,000 people will be eligible to get Watches for free. Bloomberg reported that businesses contracting with Aetna will have to decide on their own whether to adopt the wearable, and if so, how it'll be subsidized.
To this Aetna added that it's currently developing apps for Apple products that will serve a number of purposes, from reminding people to take medicines through ordering refills, checking insurance benefits, and paying bills via the Wallet app. It's not clear if that will include Apple Pay, but in any case, the new apps should be ready sometime in 2017.
Apple is likely to benefit not just from immediate sales but further tying people into its ecosystem, possible sales to other insurers, and carving out a bigger niche in the corporate fitness tracker market.
That space has so far been controlled by Fitbit, which for three years has been selling trackers to businesses wanting to cut down on insurance costs by encouraging more exercise. Aetna in fact claimed that it's the first major U.S. healthcare firm to subsidize most or all of the Watch's cost.
Apple just recently launched the Series 2, an upgrade of the Watch with waterproofing and built-in GPS. Series 1 models are also available, simply upgrading the original Watch with a faster processor.
Comments
It would be interesting to know how much of the $130 credit Aetna is subsiding, or if it sort of represents a "watch at cost" contribution by Apple.
It would also be interesting to know which company made the first suggestion in initiating the program...it certainly makes sense for a health insurance company to seek to reduce its expenditures by encouraging employee and member health. It also makes sense for Apple to want to get thousands of watches out there, visible to a public which,
if Bloomberg is correct, is still lukewarm on the product.
If I were a contributor here, who felt comfortable unreservedly raving about everything Apple (not referring to you, Soli), I might not mention that, despite living in a small city area of about 250,000 people, fairly close to greater LA, the only Watches I've seen in the wild, even now, are the two on my daughters' wrists.
So, marvelous, but not ubiquitous.
oops, sorry, apparently not a good link anymore - the idea was that its a product - as iPod's or iPad's were once,
which a company is hoping will have a halo effect on its other products, or its industry, generally...but you've probably already figured that out...
daily charging isn't a problem. let it go.