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- Discovery and the AIA Group are planning a joint venture called Amplify Health.
- They want to build Asia's leading digital health insurtech, which will provide health technology, and intellectual property expertise to AIA's health insurance businesses.
- Discovery will own 25%, and AIA will get a 75% share.
Discovery and its long-standing Asian insurance partner, the AIA Group, have teamed up to build a new insurtech business, Amplify Health.
The two insurers said their new joint venture will launch in April 2022. The goal is to become Asia's leading digital health insurtech, operating across that continent, excluding China, Hong Kong and Macau, where Discovery has an exclusive partnership with the Ping An Group.
Amplify Health will provide a range of state-of-the-art health technology, intellectual property and expertise to AIA's health insurance businesses. It will also offer health and wellness insurtech products and services to third parties across Asia.
AIA Group is Asia-Pacific's largest public listed private medical insurer. It also provides life and wellness insurance to more than 39 million policyholders and group insurance schemes. So, Amplify Health already has a large established potential customer base.
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The creation of Amplify Health builds on the near 10-year working relationship between Discovery and AIA Group. The Hong Kong-based insurer now offers AIA Vitality across ten markets in Asia. The joint venture opens the door further to one of the fastest-growing insurance segments in Asia for Discovery.
Total healthcare expenditure across AIA's markets is expected to exceed $4 trillion in 2030. Estimates show that by that time, there will be 2.6 billion middle class people in Asia.
Furthermore, the Covid-19 pandemic has rapidly accelerated digital healthcare adoption in Asia. Some 96% of insurers in Asia-Pacific indicate that their members now use telehealth to access primary physicians or general practitioners.
Adding to this, the population in parts of Asia is ageing, with close to 850 million people in the region predicted to be over the age of 60 by 2030.
"This unparalleled combination of shifting demographics, rising consumer expectations, accelerated digital adoption, new advancements in healthtech, and significant unmet service demand underpin the strategic importance of Amplify Health," said Discovery in the statement.
The former CEO of Discovery Health, Jonathan Broomberg, who is now the CEO of Vitality Health International, will lead the new joint venture.
The establishment of the joint venture is still subject to approval by the South African Reserve Bank. But the plan is that Discovery will own 25% and AIA will get the majority 75% share.
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