Fidelity Investments is expanding the coverage area for its private health exchange.

Fidelity, which provides investment management and related financial services to private and institutional investors, launched its private exchange in January in Massachusetts and New York. Now Fidelity is adding California.

Private health exchanges are marketplaces of health insurance and other related products offered by employee benefits companies and investment management firms, among others. Employers purchase health insurance through the private exchange, and then their employees can choose a health plan from those supplied by participating insurers.

Fidelity launched its private exchange to give small and mid-sized companies, employees and retirees more ways to research and buy health insurance online. “Today, technology helps us to do almost anything online, and benefits should be no different, regardless of a business’ size, says Fidelity Health Marketplace president Joe Laurin. We’ve created a user-friendly online experience that centralizes all of an employee’s health benefits in one place while alleviating the burden of benefits administration and expanding choice for this underserved market.”

Fidelity is targeting California in large part to appeal to the states 3.5 million small businesses, the company says. “California is home to startups and established small companies of all kinds that could benefit from a technology-driven solution to expand choice, improve decision-making and ease the administrative burden of managing benefits, “Laurin says.

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Fidelity didnt break out specifics on its private exchange, including how many customers and consumers are currently using it. Fidelity receives a commission from insurers using its private exchange.

But Fidelity notes it does have several big California health insurance companies taking part in its California launch, including Anthem Blue Cross, Blue Shield of California and Kaiser Permanente.

The Fidelity marketplace provides specialists to help customers and employees select plans and benefits, the company says.

In 2015, 8 million employees nationwide used a private healthcare exchange to comparison shop and buy health insurance online, up about 35% from six million employees in 2014, which was double the 3 million workers that used exchanges in 2013, says consulting and research firm Accenture.

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