Today e-commerce giant Amazon.com Inc. (Seattle), multinational conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway Inc. (Omaha, Neb.) and multinational banking and financial services holding company JPMorgan Chase & Co. (New York), announced that they will team up to create an insurance company to serve their U.S. workers.
The announcement comes after much speculation that Amazon was intent on entering the healthcare market, something that was hinted with its legal filings last year. The three companies didn’t provide many details about the new venture, but did reveal that it would “focus on technology to provide simple, high-quality health care for their employees and their families at a reasonable cost,” reports The New York Times.
The companies’ strategy seems to be reflective of a larger retail trend that includes an increase in mergers that ultimately strengthen the retailers’ capabilities outside the retail sector. Just last month, CVS Health (Woonsocket, R.I.) made a similar move, acquiring health insurance company Aetna (Hartford, Conn.) for $69 billion.