Discovery Vitality launches in Europe through Generali

23 June 2016 – The Generali Group (“Generali”) today, in Munich, Germany, announced the launch of Generali Vitality. This launch follows the announcement of the strategic partnership between Discovery and Generali in November 2014. With the design-phase of the offer now complete, this announcement signifies a milestone in Discovery’s global expansion as its shared value insurance model will now reach clients across Europe.

Generali has exclusive rights to the programme in mainland Europe, where it is a market leader. Generali Vitality will first be available to new customers in Germany from 1 July 2016, as the start of a European roll out.

Adrian Gore, CEO of Discovery Limited, explained that, “Discovery has built a global network of insurance partners under the Vitality banner, including AIA in Asia, John Hancock in the USA, Ping An Health in China and now Generali in Europe. The integration of our shared value insurance model into another market-leading insurer such as Generali is gratifying as it expands our ability to achieve better health and value for clients, superior outcomes for the insurer, and a healthier society. We are excited to see how Generali Vitality will enhance the lives of even more people across the globe.”

Discovery’s shared-value insurance model is based on the combination of engaging customers and incentivising them to manage their wellness, and dynamically pricing their behaviour into their insurance. The model guides and incentivises customers, giving them access to a broad range of wellness and prevention pathways. Engagement is measured clinically and actuarially, enabling the dynamic pricing of mortality, morbidity, and health risk.

This model will now also be adopted by Generali through its launch of Generali Vitality in Germany, where it is the second largest insurance provider.

Philippe Donnet, CEO of Generali Group commented, “Insurers play an essential role in protecting their customers when things go wrong but at Generali we believe that prevention is an equally important aspect of the role we have in our customers’ lives. The Generali Vitality programme is about motivating our customers to live better by making healthier choices, which bring value for them and for society as a whole. This disruptive offering is available to anyone who wants to improve their state of health and wellbeing no matter their starting point. The Generali Vitality programme is another example of our strategy to develop simple and smart solutions, which are fully digitalised and designed around our customers’ needs.”

Discovery CEO Gore added, “We see significant upside over the long term through this partnership. With 750 million people in Europe it is the largest insurance market in the world, after the United States. There is vast potential for Vitality to change the lifestyle behaviour of this engaged and health conscious market as they increasingly see the need for leading a healthier lifestyle.”

How Vitality has been adapted for the European market

Clinical, actuarial and product teams from Discovery Vitality and Generali embarked on a two-year process to develop a product that includes superior Vitality assets and experiences while it meets European best practice standards. All aspects of the programme, including the clinical guidelines and criteria, have been tailored to the European market. The algorithm for calculating Vitality Age, a central component of the Vitality programme, was also updated with country-specific mortality data.

Generali Vitality will be offered to new customers as an optional programme and this new generation insurance product has been approved by BaFin, the insurance regulatory body in Germany.

The Generali Vitality journey will, similar to the programme in South Africa, start with customers receiving personalised health goals. Based on the science of behavioural economics, Generali Vitality customers will be supported in achieving their personal health and fitness objectives through a three step approach: know your health, improve your health and enjoy rewards.

Employee health is fast becoming an important additional measure of a company’s overall performance, and Generali Vitality will also be available to corporate clients in the future. Over the two-year development phase, extensive research was done to identify benefits and rewards that each country would find appealing to ensure an appropriate culture fit. The benefits, rewards and discounts have been designed around this research to encourage ‘healthy choices’ and are offered through a variety of Generali Vitality partners, including: adidas, Weight Watchers, Expedia, Fitness First, Garmin and Polar.

Gore says, “This broad reach of Vitality across different population groups provides further potential to gain powerful insights from coordinating and analysing available wellness data in the global fight against non-communicable diseases. In Germany, 41% of all smartphone users have at least one health app. This increased use of technology and wearable devices enables greater measuring, tracking and personalisation of health and wellness goals which will continue to pave the way for innovative wellness interventions.”