Innovation at Discovery

Discovery is nominated in the Global Innovator category at the Qorus-NTT DATA Innovation in Insurance Awards 2025. We asked the bank to present its strategy and actions in terms of innovation.

Why do you consider your company a Global Innovator?

Discovery has been a pioneer and innovator since its inception in 1992, bringing a new model of insurance to its native South Africa and subsequently to the world through partnerships with insurers in 40 markets. Discovery's core purpose of making people healthier was revolutionary at the time, so much so, that healthcare groups criticised us for spending money on prevention. In the 1990s, the idea of lifestyle, behaviour change, and preventive health was not mainstream. Over the years, Discovery's more than 60 million life years of data has borne our the validity of this model repeatedly - changing health behaviour improves mortality and morbidity, and the value derived from making people healthier is so significant, it not only boosts insurance profits but can be re-invested into the very rewards and incentives that encourage people to be healthier. It's a virtuous circle with no trade-offs - the interests of the customer, insurer & society are completely aligned. We have since applied this model to a number of adjacent businesses including investments, banking, and even renewable energy.


What are the major goals and results obtained from your ongoing innovation strategy?

Innovation is one of our nine core values and arguably the "lifeblood" of the company. Leadership sets the tone and every person - from the call centre staff to the nurses assisting with underwriting to the developers writing code - are invited into the innovation process and mindset. our CEO believes that innovation is not opportunistic or once-off; rather, innovation needs to be “institutionalised and purpose-driven, not reactive.” We achieve this through annual competitions and launches that create a constant treadmill of ideas, entrenching innovation into our DNA. We have also found that, the more you innovate, the more you can innovate – it becomes infinite. For example, creating a new offering like Active Rewards - where people are incentivised with weekly rewards for completing personalised exercise goals - stimulates a number of related innovations like giving people a free Apple Watch if they complete their exercise ring each week, an absolutely killer benefit that lead to around 10% of all Apple Watch sales in South Africa coming via Discovery. We continue to build on our innovations - for example, this year we launched Personal Health Pathways, providing customised health journeys to each of our 2.2 million adult medical scheme members.


What are the major goals and results obtained from your ongoing innovation strategy?

Discovery’s Vitality model is academically validated, with highly engaged members demonstrating 10% lower hospital admissions, 10%-30% lower hospital costs and 15%-20% higher life expectancy. Globally, 40 million lives are experiencing the benefits of positive change, and in FY2023 we recorded 503 million healthy activities, saving over two million life years and returning R13.7 billion in value to clients. Vitality-integrated insurers benefit from increased sales and higher engagement with customers. The model has shown to create a profit margin that is up to 3 times that of traditional insurance models (figures vary by markets), while decreasing the cost of insurance for clients. Our incentivisation of physical activity is particularly powerful: an analysis of more than 500,000 Vitality members over five years showed that those aged 45 to 65 years who transitioned from no exercise to medium or high levels of exercise saw a 38% and 58% decrease in mortality risk respectively.


How does your company manage the overall innovation process?

Discovery does not innovate simply for innovation’s sake. It’s a process that helps to realise our core purpose (making people healthier) through our products and services. Every year, all of our product houses launch new products and benefits in an annual launch (“Discovery Day”), so businesses are on a constant schedule to innovate. Our clients expect innovation from us. Each innovation goes through a rigorous review process to assess value, cost, and efficiency. In addition, we have internal competitions that spark ongoing radical thinking that leads to product or process innovations. The Inspiring Excellence programme invites anyone in the business to generate new ideas based on their daily work, often through multi-functional teams, with an executive sponsor and mentor. An annual Actuarial Conference sees hundreds of our actuaries from our offices around the world present ideas ranging from using large language models in Health to calculating a car’s “age” using telematics and behavioral data in our short-term insurance business. Through these initiatives, we have created both a treadmill for innovation and a consistent and rigorous process for implementing these ideas. Finally, our Executive Committee holds strategic summits once or twice a year to force thinking around “blue sky” ideas that could have a Pareto impact on the business.