Discovery Health is tapping into sleep tracking and optimisation as the next frontier in its “shared value” business model, which integrates offerings across health, banking and insurance.
Speaking at an event at Discovery’s Sandton headquarters on Tuesday, Discovery Bank CEO Hylton Kallner said the financial services giant tapped into its 1.4 petabyte dataset to find correlations between positive sleep behaviours and outcomes in heath, wealth and general decision-making.
“When you bring it together, Discovery’s dataset is one of the largest of its kind across the globe. We have built up data in areas like physical activity to understand the correlations between how people behave and better outcomes for their lives, such as health and longevity,” said Kallner.
“What we see through the data are correlations between better sleep and better health. People who have better sleep have a lower likelihood of diabetes, for example. The same is true for the likelihood of hospitalisation, mortality rates, significantly reduced in-hospital claims and even accidents, because sleep affects how you drive on the road.”
Discovery holds “one of the largest longitudinal data sets in the world”. Sleep-tracking data from some 100 000 members amounts to 47 million nights of sleep. Other data includes 1.1 billion events from device data, 26.5 million life years of information from member engagement through its Vitality programme and 48.7 million life years of information from its demographic data.
Analysing this data has allowed Discovery to use its understanding of the impact of sleep on health to develop profiles highlighting which aspects of sleep – duration, frequency, regularity and timing – are most important for people at different stages of their lives.
Sleep score
Complementing these profiles is an individualised sleep score, currently in beta-testing, that will be released by Discovery Vitality early in 2026. Members are then given their current sleep score and an optimal sleep score along with behaviours to help them inch closer to the optimum. Sleep rewards are given to members as they make progress.
The sleep actions and recommendations are linked to Discovery Health’s Personal Health Pathways programme launched in March. These pathways use artificial intelligence to give Discovery members bespoke actions to improve their health outcomes.
Read: Discovery turns to AI for ‘hyper-personalised health care’
On the insurance side, Discovery Insure incentivises its members to engage in behaviours that decrease the likelihood they will end up in an accident, which includes sufficient and regular sleep cycles. To drive this, members who optimise their sleep scores improve their Discovery Drive status, earning them higher rewards while reducing their insurance premiums.
“Discovery will be the first health insurer globally to reward people for sleeping,” said Discovery Health CEO Ron Whelan.
Sleep data related to financial health shows a correlative relationship between high-quality sleep and disciplined financial management. Discovery Bank has not yet integrated sleep rewards into its financial rewards system. However, investigations are under way that could see clients who sleep better earn rewards and possibly better interest rates on loans – provided other metrics are positive, too.
Although Discovery has been collecting health-related data over many years, the proliferation of smart devices such as smartwatches and exercise bands in recent years has led to an explosion in the amount of data collected and the ability to correlate it with various health outcomes. Wearables also provide a real-time element to the collection of health data that wasn’t possible before.
Read: Discovery Bank CEO on the future of banking in South Africa
For users who don’t have a wearable device to facilitate their sleep tracking, Discovery will launch the Vitality Sleep Tracker, also early in 2026, to allow consenting members to participate in sleep tracking for Vitality rewards. According to Discovery Vitality CEO Dinesh Govender, app-based tracking follows sleep duration and regularity well, but falters when it comes to measuring sleep quality.
To address this, Discovery Vitality will launch a new health ring in partnership with Ōura. Ōura rings will be available on the Discovery Vitality website from Wednesday.
“The reality is that consumer wearables have allowed for more high-resolution continuous tracking in real-world environments. Wearables create that awareness and access for consumers and the Ōura ring is like a sleep lab on your finger,” said Kate Wier, head of corporate sales and development at Ōura, who also spoke at the event. – © 2025 NewsCentral Media
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