Discovery Life's Personalised PayBack Booster Qorus-NTT DATA Innovation in Insurance Awards 2026

The Personalised PayBack Booster is an innovation from Discovery Life that enhances its shared-value insurance model by introducing hyper-personalised health engagement linked directly to life insurance rewards.

Concept and objectives

The solution integrates Discovery Health’s Personal Health Pathways into life insurance incentives. Using predictive analytics and behavioural science, the system identifies each client’s “next best health actions” based on their health status, risk profile and engagement patterns.

Clients complete personalised health activities, such as health checks, cancer screenings or chronic medication adherence, which contribute to closing a progress ring in the Discovery app. When the ring is closed, clients unlock the maximum PayBack on their life insurance premium, earning up to 100% of that month’s premium paid back to them through the Shared-value PayBack benefit.

The primary objectives were to:

• Increase engagement with preventative health actions

• Improve early detection of serious conditions

• Generate measurable improvements in mortality and morbidity

• Share the resulting actuarial value with clients through enhanced financial rewards.

Reasons behind the project

Traditional wellness programmes often rely on generic incentives that fail to motivate meaningful behaviour change. Discovery recognised that behavioural change improves dramatically when interventions are personalised to individual risk factors and when rewards are both immediate and significant.

Personalised PayBack Booster therefore shifts incentives from broad wellness participation to precision-guided preventative healthcare actions.

State of competition

Globally, many insurers offer wellness-linked incentives (typically tied to activity tracking or gym visits). However, most programmes:

• Apply uniform incentives rather than personalised recommendations

• Focus on simple activity metrics rather than clinical health outcomes

• Provide limited integration with core insurance value

Discovery’s model advances this by combining predictive health analytics, digital engagement and actuarial value sharing in a single ecosystem.

Sources of inspiration

The project builds on several foundations:

• Discovery’s established Shared-value insurance model

• Advances in AI-driven recommendation systems

• Behavioural science principles such as nudging, habit formation and immediate reward

• Clinical evidence showing the power of early detection and preventative care

Departments involved

Delivering the solution required collaboration across the organisation:

• Actuarial teams (risk modelling and surplus generation)

• Data science and AI teams (predictive health models and recommendation engines)

• Digital product teams (mobile platform and user experience)

• Clinical and health strategy teams (screening and health interventions)

• Marketing and behavioural science specialists (engagement design)

Main results so far

Early results demonstrate strong improvements in engagement, health outcomes and client value.

Increased engagement with preventative health actions:

• 14,775 clients completed suggested screening actions in 2025

• 40% higher completion rates compared with expected screening behaviour prior to the programme

• Key actions completed:

  • 9,474 cancer screenings

  • 5,469 health checks

  • 2,504 metabolic health screens

  • 714 organ health screenings

Significant financial value delivered to clients

• 15,240 boosted PayBack rewards earned through screening actions in 2025

• US$840,000 in purely additive premium value returned to clients through PayBack boosts in the first 12 months of the product

Improved health outcomes and lifesaving interventions

• 47 Severe Illness Benefit claims were detected during recommended screenings

  • Of the 35 cancer claims, 32 were Stage 1 or Stage 2, enabling earlier treatment and improved prognosis

  • 12 heart and artery conditions were identified requiring timely intervention

Improved early detection trends

• Screening rates increased 10–44% year-on-year for screenable cancers

• Early-stage cancer diagnoses increased significantly

• Regular screening increased the probability of early-stage cancer detection by 18.6%

These outcomes demonstrate that personalised engagement not only drives client participation but also directly improves health outcomes and claims experience.