As the youngest of the large life insurers, Discovery is eager to grow. In an environment where Sanlam Personal Finance had a 7% decline in new business, Discovery’s group new business was up 16%. And this wasn’t driven by the new ventures either — Discovery Life’s new business was up 17% and Discovery Health’s 18%. Discovery is a life insurer at heart now, and CEO Adrian Gore says Discovery Life provides the "source code" for its data-based programmes. With R3.6bn of operating profit it is now the source of half the group total. But as the original business, Discovery Health provides the richest vein of information and still defies the term "mature". The Discovery Health Medical Scheme — which it manages but does not own — has a 55% market share of the open scheme market, though Gore says it has plenty of runway with just 40% of the total market. It added 43,000 new lives last year. The CE of the bank, former Nedbank technology tsar Barry Hore, certainly couldn’t be described as a ...
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