First, it was telematics. Now, Discovery Insure believes wearable technology is allowing it to measure another important factor that influences driving risk: how well motorists sleep before they get behind the wheel.
For more than a decade, Discovery’s Vitality Drive programme has used telematics to measure driving behaviour and reward safer motorists. The insurer now says advances in wearable technology, together with the scale of its data ecosystem, have created a unique opportunity to understand how sleep affects driving risk.
Drawing on four years of linked sleep, telematics, and claims data from more than 10 000 Discovery Insure clients, the insurer says poor sleep – particularly the cumulative effect of missing sleep over several consecutive nights – is up to five times more predictive of motor vehicle accident risk than traditional insurance risk factors considered in isolation. The findings have prompted the insurer to introduce Vitality Drive Sleep Points, rewarding members for maintaining healthy, consistent sleep habits.
At the Discovery Insure Drive Like No Other event, chief executive Robert Attwell said the insurer had accumulated 47 million nights of sleep data from more than 100 000 clients, creating what he described as “a unique advantage for us to look at sleep in a very different way”.
He said Discovery believes “no short-term insurer globally has ever had granular sleep data and then granular driving data to confirm the impact of sleep on daily driving behaviour”.
More than just hours of sleep
Discovery’s research suggests that sleep is about more than simply getting enough hours in bed. It examined three aspects of sleep – regularity, duration, and quality – before analysing the cumulative effect of missed sleep over several consecutive nights, known as sleep debt.
Sleep regularity showed the strongest relationship with accident risk. Drivers who went to bed within about an hour of their ideal bedtime each night were up to 36% less likely to be involved in an accident than those with irregular sleep patterns.
Sleep duration followed closely behind. Drivers who consistently slept between seven and eight hours a night had up to a 32% lower accident risk than those who regularly slept too little.
The research also found that sleep quality mattered. Drivers who obtained sufficient Rapid Eye Movement (REM) sleep – the stage associated with memory, learning, and cognitive function – experienced about a 14% lower accident risk.
The relationship held even among Discovery’s safest motorists. Comparing Diamond status drivers alone, Discovery found that those with healthy sleep patterns had a 32% lower accident risk than Diamond drivers who slept poorly. Attwell said this gave the insurer confidence that sleep was influencing driving risk independently of the behaviours already measured through telematics.
Attwell said Discovery also wanted to understand whether several consecutive nights of poor sleep affected driving differently from a single late night.
“We looked at people who, for multiple nights in a row, don’t sleep well… if you’ve accumulated a significant amount of sleep debt, does that impact your driving behaviour? And that became one of the strongest predictors of your risk of having an accident.”
Almost 30% of the drivers included in the study accumulated some degree of sleep debt. The research found that about half of the relationship between sleep and accident risk was linked to cumulative sleep loss over several consecutive nights rather than to a single poor night’s sleep.
Drivers carrying less than one hour of sleep debt over three consecutive nights had up to a 36% lower accident risk than those who had accumulated five hours or more over the same period.
Tired driving still flies under the radar
Globally, road traffic crashes claim about 1.19 million lives each year, with research suggesting driver fatigue contributes to about one in five crashes. In South Africa, road crashes cost the economy an estimated R205 billion in 2023, equivalent to about 2.7% of GDP.
Discovery says its findings are consistent with international research on fatigue and road safety.
Research cited by Discovery shows that being awake for more than 16 hours can impair driving to a level comparable with driving at or above South Africa’s legal blood alcohol limit of 0.05%.
Even so, many motorists appear to underestimate the risk. A 2024 survey found that almost 90% of adults would avoid driving after having a few drinks, but only 50% said they would avoid driving after a poor night’s sleep.
Attwell believes that imbalance needs to change.
“For years, road safety efforts have rightly focused on risks like speeding, distracted driving, and drinking and driving. Our research suggests tired driving deserves the same level of public awareness because the consequences can be just as severe.”
From research to rewards
The research has led Discovery to incorporate sleep into its existing Vitality Drive programme through the introduction of Sleep Points. The insurer says this makes it the first South African short-term insurer to reward healthy sleep habits as part of a behaviour-based driving programme.
Discovery introduced Vitality Drive Sleep Points in June. Clients who activate their Vitality Sleep Score and share sleep data from a compatible wearable device – including selected Apple, Garmin, and Samsung devices, as well as the Oura Ring – have been able to earn up to 300 additional Vitality Drive points each month.
The additional points count towards a member’s overall Vitality Drive status and can help qualifying members to earn up to R150 a month in fuel rewards.
Rather than rewarding longer sleep alone, the programme measures the same behaviours identified in Discovery’s research: maintaining a regular bedtime, getting enough sleep, and achieving good-quality sleep, while also taking accumulated sleep debt into account.
Attwell said the programme was deliberately designed to encourage healthier behaviour rather than penalise people who struggle to sleep.
“Sleep is very personal… We’ve made sure we’ve done nothing that penalises you if you don’t sleep well… We just said to our clients, for those who sleep well, because you’re a better risk, you can earn an additional 300 Vitality Drive points every month.”
He said the approach reflects Discovery’s long-standing view that behaviour can be influenced through positive incentives.
“The nature of risk is behavioural.”
Attwell said adding sleep to Vitality Drive is the next step in encouraging behaviours that reduce risk before an accident occurs.
“The best claim is the one that never happened.”
What happens to the data?
The use of telematics and now sleep data inevitably raises questions about whether that information could later be used against policyholders when they submit a claim.
Attwell said Discovery draws a clear distinction between using behavioural data to encourage healthier and safer habits and using it to assess claims.
“We are unequivocal and very stern about what we use the data for.”
He said telematics data is used only to confirm the time and location of an incident, enabling services such as Impact Alert and faster emergency assistance. Claims assessors do not have access to drivers’ telematics scores when processing claims.
“We only use telematics data to confirm the time and the location of an incident… Our claims team, for example, wouldn’t have access to the telematics data at all during the processing of a claim.”
Although Attwell was responding specifically to a question about telematics, he said Discovery applies the same principles to the behavioural data it collects more broadly.
He said the insurer would undermine client trust if it began declining claims based on how people drive.
“We wouldn’t be the fastest-growing short-term insurer in South Africa if we started losing the trust of our clients by declining claims because of how they drive.”
