Rethink saving: Help your clients earn more from life cover

For many South Africans, financial responsibility no longer follows a predictable path, with money set aside for a specific goal or a rainy day. Now it’s about maintaining consistent financial, health and protection habits that can create additional value over time. Today, innovative product features like Discovery Life’s PayBack reward these behaviours, helping clients get returns from the financial, health and protection decisions they make.

This shift also places greater emphasis on comprehensive life cover – not only as protection but as a solution that supports ongoing financial resilience and offers added value over time. Many clients are supporting their immediate families as well as their parents, siblings or extended family, all while working towards their own financial goals. Suddenly, income becomes more than personal earnings – it becomes the foundation of a broader financial stability.

This creates a different kind of financial planning requirement: clients may not yet feel financially secure, but they are already exposed to significant financial risk.

As South Africa observes Savings Month this July, it highlights an important opportunity for advisers to shift the conversation towards the value of comprehensive protection. Many of these clients carry significant financial responsibility, yet they may not have built the savings buffers, protection solutions, or long-term financial resilience needed to support those who depend on them. This is where the financial adviser plays an essential role: helping clients understand the importance of protecting their income and building a more resilient financial foundation on which savings can compound.

Rethinking the savings conversation

Financial planning and life insurance should be seen as the foundation on which long-term savings are developed. While life-stage milestones such as marriage, home ownership or parenthood remain important, they may no longer be the strongest indicators of when a client needs to start building savings and financial resilience. A more relevant starting point is understanding the client’s financial responsibilities, protection needs and dependencies. These insights can be used to structure life cover and financial planning as a foundation for building sustainable savings habits.

The key question is therefore no longer only, “How old is this client?” but rather, “What financial responsibilities does this client need to protect today, so they can continue building long-term savings tomorrow?”

The answer often reveals a need for more than just investment planning, highlighting the need for risk protection and creating an opportunity to supplement savings through rewards like PayBack, which rewards consistent financial and healthy behaviours by returning a portion of premiums in cash over time.

Shifting from products to outcomes

Clients don’t always engage with traditional financial planning conversations around retirement or long-term legacy. A more compelling conversation starts by positioning risk protection as the foundation for clients to build long-term wealth with confidence. Clients often respond more readily to discussions about:

• Protecting the income that funds their financial commitments
• Safeguarding the people who rely on their financial support
• Ensuring that wealth-building plans can continue even if their income is disrupted.

Consider asking:

• Why would income need to be protected for your long-term wealth plan to stay on track?
• How long could you continue saving or investing if your income stopped unexpectedly?
• What would happen to your family’s financial progress if you could not work for six months?
• Would your savings and investments be used to create wealth, or to cover the gap left by an unexpected financial shock?
• Is your risk protection strong enough to preserve the wealth you are working to build?

These questions help shift the conversation from products to outcomes, showing clients that risk protection is not separate from wealth creation. It is the base that protects their earning ability, keeps savings and investments intact, and gives long-term wealth the opportunity to grow.

Building resilience, not just wealth

Savings Month serves as a reminder that financial resilience is built over time through consistent habits, not just once-off decisions. This includes building habits that not only protect their financial future but also create additional value over time. Discovery Life’s shared-value model supports this by rewarding clients for how they manage their health, finances and protection.

Clients can benefit from: 

• PayBack, which returns a portion of qualifying premiums in cash over time
• The Cash Conversion Benefit, which can supplement retirement income
• Integrated benefits and discounts across Discovery products.

Together, these features reinforce the value of consistent financial behaviour. The objective is not only wealth accumulation but helping clients build resilience while earning value back along the way.

An opportunity for advisers

This change in financial realities creates an opportunity to reposition life cover in a more meaningful way by helping clients understand:

• The value of their income
• The extent of their financial responsibilities
• The risks associated with disruption
• How shared-value solutions can reward positive financial behaviours over time.

Advisers can address financial resilience gaps before it’s too late – which is when a comprehensive life cover solution becomes critical. Beyond protection, solutions that reward clients for consistent financial behaviour can help them build resilience and receive tangible value in PayBacks over time – reinforcing the importance of staying committed to their plan.

Life cover now shifts from a grudge purchase to a proactive financial decision – one that not only protects income but also supports long-term financial progress. Increasingly, the most important financial planning conversation is not only with clients who have already built wealth, but with those whose income plays a critical role in supporting others and who need solutions that both protect and reward that responsibility.

Discovery Life Limited, registration number 1966/003901/06, is a licensed life insurer, and an authorised financial services and registered credit provider, NCR registration number NCRCP3555. Product rules, terms and conditions apply.