Discovery set to shoot the lights out

Discovery is set to report another set of strong results for its 2025 financial year, as the insurance giant benefited from a recovery in its UK division and a solid performance in South Africa.

In a trading statement released on Wednesday, 3 September, Discovery provided an update on its expected earnings for the financial year ended 30 June 2025.

This statement showed that Discovery expects its normalised profit from operations to increase by between 26% and 31% compared to the year ended 30 June 2024.

In addition, Discovery projected that its headline earnings are expected to increase by between 27% and 32%. Earnings per share are expected to increase by between 23% and 28%.

This growth was driven by a robust performance across all of Discovery’s business units, which all saw profit growth in the period.

Discovery’s South African operations will see its normalised profit from operations grow by 20% to 25%.

Discovery Insure was a standout performer in this division, with expected normalised profit growth of between 225% and 230%.

Discovery Bank also made significant inroads toward profitability, reducing its losses by between 82% and 87%.

The company said Discovery Bank generated its first profitable period during the second half of the financial year, ahead of schedule, while the acquisition of quality clients accelerated.

It noted that Discovery Health also generated solid earnings growth, with further investment into technology, innovation and AI over the period.

Discovery Life delivered strong earnings growth, mainly driven by an exceptional claims experience.

Discovery Invest delivered significant profit growth due to an increase in the value of assets under management and certain one-off benefits.

Discovery Insure’s standout performance was attributed to successfully executed pricing and claims management initiatives, which, combined with benign weather conditions, resulted in a significant improvement in its claims ratio.

Discovery’s Vitality business, which includes Vitality UK and Vitality Global, made strong progress in restructuring all its global operations into a focused single business over the last 9 months.

In the 2025 financial year, VitalityHealth’s performance was strong, driven by effective pricing actions, a stabilising claims environment and rigorous claims and expense management.

VitalityLife also delivered strong earnings with excellent new business growth, driven by the effective execution of Discovery’s shared-value insurance model.

The company’s Ping An Health Insurance performed robustly in the year, following the prior year’s exceptional result that benefited from both a Covid-19 reserve release and a tax gain.

Vitality Network’s result reflects the restructure underway to build greater, longer-term scale and value.

Discovery’s full annual financial statements for its 2025 financial year will be released on or about 11 September 2025.

The expected performance of Discovery’s business units can be seen in the table below: