Smart Money – Discovery Health’s Deon Kotze on how innovation drives affordable, quality healthcare in South Africa

In this Smart Money with Alishia Seckam interview, Deon Kotze unpacks Discovery Health’s announcement of a weighted average increase of 7.2%.

Kotze is the Chief Commercial Officer of Discovery Health and is a highly experience professional in the financial sector.

He has been with Discovery for nearly 16 years, first starting out with the company as an actuary in 2010.

He was soon promoted to Head of Discovery Health, Vitality, and Discovery Card Technical Marketing in 2012, and would lead several other Discovery departments in the years to come – including the Health Research and Development department and the R&D Lab.

In 2023, Kotze was appointed as the Chief Product Officer for Discovery Health.

After serving in this role for a year, he was appointed as Chief Commercial Officer for Discovery Health – the role he holds to this day.

Before joining Discovery, Kotze earned experience as an actuarial analyst for a variety of prominence financial services companies – with Absa Group and Deloitte South Africa being among these names.

He prides himself on his ability to lead complex projects – a skill he has learned over his long and impressive career.

Kotze is an associate of the Institute of Actuaries and has his Bachelor’s Degree focused in Actuarial Science.

The interview

In this Smart Money interview, Kotze explains how Discovery Health came to the 7.2% figure for its 2026 weighted average increase.

He explains why medical inflation continues to outpace CPI, highlighting several factors that cause this such as utilisation trends, ageing demographics, and claims data.

Kotze then discusses Discovery Health’s decision to defer the increase to April 2026, and explains how Discovery can afford to do this.

He reveals whether there were changes in member behaviour or claims patterns that influenced Discovery Health’s pricing and benefit design, before concluding the discussion by addressing how Discovery Health balances the need for financial sustainability with competitive pricing and member retention.

Watch the full interview with Discovery Health, below.