Vitality opening more doors for Discovery
Discovery is taking another step in its efforts to take its sharedvalue insurance model global with a world-first study that aims to show the economic benefits of physical exercise and healthy living.
Discovery’s wellness programme, Vitality, which is now the world’s biggest behavioural platform, has garnered more than 20-million clients across the globe as more insurers team up with Discovery to integrate the model on their platforms. Vitality contributed R3.6bn to
Discovery’s total gross income of R58.8bn for the year to June.
In 2019, Vitality undertook a new commitment: to increase the physical activity of at least 100-million people globally by 20%. As part of that initiative, Vitality collaborated with UK research institute RAND Europe to conduct a worldwide study to gauge how increased activity could benefit economies.
The study, which is being released at an event in London on Wednesday, showed that the world could be $100bn richer (about R1.5-trillion) each year until 2050 if people exercised more. In SA, it found that if all physically inactive adults did at least two-an-a-half hours of moderate intensity exercise, the country can gain between $1.6bn and $2.1bn (R23bnR30bn) more in GDP per year.
Until now, Discovery has encouraged and incentivised its customers via Vitality to become more active because of benefits that accrue to both parties. For Discovery, a healthier insured population means a smaller likelihood of claims, while for consumers it means health and financial rewards such as lower insurance premiums.
Although clinicians have long argued that increased physical activity affects economic performance as sedentary people can become obese and sicker, there has not yet been a worldwide study to provide tangible evidence for this contention.
“This ground-breaking study provides proof of the relationship between exercise, productivity, mortality and economic growth,” said Discovery CEO Adrian Gore.
What this means for Discovery is that more insurers are likely to take notice of Vitality, which played a huge role in enabling the insurer to foster commercial partnerships in offshore markets and to expand its presence beyond SA. There is now a Vitality UK and a Vitality US, while a number of insurers in European countries, Canada and Asia have also embedded Vitality in their models.
In September 2018, one of the oldest US insurers, John Hancock Financial, announced that it was abandoning the traditional insurance model in favour of selling only Vitality-linked cover to its 10-million customers. Discovery said insurers connected by Vitality are now collectively accountable for more than 35% of the world’s individual insurance market.