CVS Puts Aetna in Its Place in Apple Watch Announcement

Executives at Aetna said at the time that they believed the company was the first large U.S. health insurer to offer a significant discount on Apple Watch devices.

John Hancock, a Boston-based unit of Manulife Financial Corp., began offering life insurance premium discounts for consumers who participated in the Vitality Group wellness program in 2015, and it said in September that it will be building the Vitality program into all new, and in-force, life insurance policies that the company provides.

The Vitality Group is part of Discovery Ltd., the South African-based company that helped bring the personal health account concept to the United States.

CVS Health-Aetna

CVS Health completed its acquisition of Aetna in November.

For life and health agents, one question about the CVS Health-Aetna deal has been how much interest CVS Health will have in Aetna's experience and brand.

One reason is sentimental: Aetna has been selling life insurance and health insurance since 1853.

Another is practical: How much CVS Health sees the health insurance business as an interesting business in its own right, as opposed to a mechanism for bringing consumers to retail clinics in CVS Health drug stores, could shape the kinds of commercial health insurance products the CVS Health Aetna unit might provide going forward.

— Read CVS and Aetna Face Honeymoon Stress, on ThinkAdvisor.

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