Miao Health and Taikang Online Partner with OPPO Watch to Launch Innovative Interactive Health Insurance
In early March, OPPO launched its first Android smartwatch, the OPPO Watch, differentiating itself through features such as a curved display, fast charging, and AI-powered outfit recommendations, thereby making significant waves in the smart wearable device sector. Like tech giants Apple and Samsung, OPPO is positioning smartwatches as a key component of its health strategy.
Amid the pandemic, individuals have placed increasing emphasis on their health. The OPPO Watch, which targets consumers’ wrists, has begun collaborating with health management and insurance institutions to explore innovative approaches to health services. On May 29, 2020, a tripartite deep-cooperation health insurance project involving OPPO Watch, Miao Health, and Taikang Online was officially launched, introducing China’s first interactive health insurance product based on smartwatches—the “Lüdong Bao” series.
“Lüdong Bao” offers a one-stop service ranging from health assessments and behavioral interventions to insurance coverage and medical services, providing a closed-loop solution for comprehensive health risk management and effectively enhancing members’ health benefits. OPPO Watch users can claim complimentary “Lüdong Bao” insurance coverage at no cost and redeem additional insurance benefits through healthy behaviors, with sum insured and premiums adjusted dynamically based on individual health status to promote wellness.
This project, jointly operated by smart device manufacturers, health management providers, and insurance institutions, fully demonstrates the effective integration of resources from the user side, service provider side, and payer side, delivering a superior service experience to consumers. By leveraging AIoT digital technologies, it enables consumers to enjoy personalized health benefits, secure health protection against risks, and build health-related wealth, thereby forming a virtuous, closed-loop ecosystem.
From the perspective of both domestic and international markets, the wearable smart hardware sector—particularly smartwatches and fitness bands—is already dominated by tech giants. However, smartphone manufacturers possess inherent advantages in smart hardware manufacturing and have accumulated extensive supply chain expertise. By entering this field, they can not only leverage their brand momentum but also integrate health management and insurtech to tap into the blue ocean of the broader health industry. This strategy enables the delivery of comprehensive, innovative services and customer experiences, thereby maximizing long-term value for consumers.
Smartwatches, akin to smartphones, are among the most rapidly evolving interactive devices of our era. They comprehensively integrate data acquisition functions for sleep, physical activity, electrocardiogram (ECG), heart rate, and other health- and fitness-related metrics. By leveraging core technologies such as advanced materials, biosensors, artificial intelligence algorithms, and data mining, smartwatches encourage consumers to adopt healthier lifestyles, thereby achieving effective health management.
According to the "2020 China Digital Marketing Report," in dynamic scenarios such as exercise, walking, and brief stops, new devices like smartwatches, fitness trackers, and smart earbuds will unlock greater application potential for the wearable intelligent ecosystem. Meanwhile, innovation reliant on a single smartphone platform has become increasingly challenging; with scenario differentiation and the growing prominence of full-cycle service value, combined innovation across multiple smart devices is now underway.
In recent years, consumer electronics companies specializing in smart wearable technology, such as Fitbit, Garmin, and Huami, as well as broader consumer electronics giants like Huawei, Apple, Samsung, and OPPO, have collectively repositioned themselves. They have elevated their focus from basic self-quantification through data tracking to providing comprehensive medical and health services, either by building proprietary closed-service ecosystems or by leveraging multi-party resources to secure new commercial support.
In February this year, Samsung officially launched the Galaxy Watch Active, a microcosm of its focus on the health monitoring market. In addition to Samsung, Apple recently expanded the availability of the ECG (electrocardiogram) monitoring feature on the Apple Watch to more regions. This time, OPPO Watch, a newcomer in the smartwatch arena, has chosen to collaborate across industries with Miao Health and Taikang Online to provide users with more tailored health management services.
In the era of big data, health data is increasingly valued. Smartwatches, due to their close contact with the skin and extended wear time, have become the optimal method for continuously collecting human health data. More importantly, smartwatches like the OPPO Watch are equipped with various sensors that can monitor the wearer’s heart rate, sleep, and other health metrics in real time, while seamlessly syncing the collected information with mobile applications.
Specifically on the server side, OPPO Watch has partnered with Miao Health, a benchmark enterprise in the field of health management, to expand its service scope and deeply explore the potential value of health data. With nearly six years of extensive experience in digital health management, Miao Health has built the “Miao+” IoT health data access platform by opening its health data SDK interfaces. This platform aggregates medical and healthcare service resources to provide one-stop health management solutions.
Furthermore, Miao Health has partnered with Taikang Online to customize personalized, interactive health insurance products. These policies offer floating sum-insured rewards based on user adherence and task completion rates, covering both medical and critical illness insurance to provide comprehensive risk protection. By leveraging behavioral interventions as a management tool and insurance coverage as a payment mechanism, Miao Health has effectively bridged the upstream and downstream sectors through technology and services, thereby opening new avenues for innovation in health insurance products.
In the post-pandemic era, people are paying greater attention to their health. By integrating smartwatches with mobile health management, it is possible to break through temporal and spatial constraints, enabling individuals to monitor their health status anytime and making health management readily accessible. Under this trend, it is believed that an increasing number of wearable smart device manufacturers and insurance companies will focus on the application of digital and intelligent health management technologies.
In the fiercely competitive insurance market, delivering personalized customer experiences has become a key strategic priority for insurers. Leveraging smart wearable devices as a technological platform can break through traditional insurance pricing and business models: by utilizing health data fed back from users, insurers can significantly increase engagement opportunities, gain timely insights into customers’ health status, and thereby tailor personalized products and services to individual needs.
Taikang Online, in partnership with Miao Health, has launched the Lvdong Bao series, which primarily comprises medical insurance and critical illness insurance. Eligible individuals aged 18 to 50 can receive these policies free of charge. Taking the complimentary critical illness coverage under Lvdong Bao as an example, users who meet their daily exercise targets on the OPPO Watch can increase their sum insured and extend the coverage period. If the cumulative number of days meeting the exercise target is ≥15, the insurance period is extended by one month; if the cumulative number of days is <15, the insurance coverage expires and becomes void.
As a payment provider, Taikang Online has embraced internet concepts and AIoT technology in a disruptive manner, leveraging interactive insurance policies supported by OPPO Watch and Miao Health. This approach has enabled it to pioneer the era of precision pricing in insurance, promoting proactive health improvement among users through dynamic, high-frequency interactions.
On the other hand, for policyholders, Taikang Online’s “Lüdong Bao” is no longer just a “cold” claims payout. By keeping pace with evolving customer needs and emerging technologies, it provides users with comprehensive services, including medical appointment scheduling, health consultations, and disease management. This approach not only enhances the value-added component of insurance products and boosts customer satisfaction, but also mitigates misunderstandings and dissatisfaction arising from poor communication, thereby continuously earning users’ respect and recognition.
Early this year, senior officials of the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission (CBIRC) stated that efforts would be made to expand the health insurance market to over RMB 2 trillion by 2025. This multi-trillion-yuan market has attracted an increasing number of participants. The business model integrating “smartwatches + health management + health insurance” boasts broad development prospects, with end-users, service providers, and payers working in concert to deliver comprehensive services that meet users’ diverse needs.
The 5G era has arrived. It will become a consensus among mobile phone manufacturers, health management companies, and insurance institutions to explore health data centered on smart wearable devices and build an ecosystem of comprehensive health services. To seize opportunities in the blue ocean market of big health, only through continuous cross-industry integration and mutual complementarity can stakeholders truly secure a share of the market.