Insurance is a grudge purchase. We spend money every month on something we hope we never need. We’re not motivated by desire for something fun and fabulous; we’re motivated by fear – fear of losing our possessions, or becoming sick or disabled.

And investment is much the same. Very few people put away R 100, R 1 000 or R 10 000 every month because they want to. We do it because we believe we should. And, much like insurance, we don’t get anything out of it until – way in the future – we get some kind of payback. In our culture of instant gratification, that’s not so hot.

So that’s why insurance/investment companies have started to tailor their products to respond to the way most real people actually think and make decisions. Discovery was the first long term insurance company to tie a bunch of lifestyle rewards to life insurance, and it worked so well, most of the other insurance companies followed suit. Momentum Multiply and Sanlam Reality both offer a basket of benefits like reduced-fee gym membership, discounted lifestyle products like movies and travel, and a range of cash backs. Liberty Own your life Rewards is similar but it’s in a slightly different category because it can be used as a stand-alone benefits programme without having any policies with Liberty.

They are all similar, and they’re all different, and each has its strong points and weak points, and even those are subjective depending on what it is you want out of it. It’s tempting to mix and match – hospital plan in one place, short term and life insurance in perhaps two others, and then spread your investments around to hedge your bets. But that’s really not a good idea because the crux of all of them is that they reward you – not only for good behaviour like eating well, going to gym, not smoking, and not driving like a teenager – but also for spending money with them. Yes, the more products you have with one company, the more your benefits accrue.

So, for example, if you have a Discovery life policy, and you’ve activated the Vitality option, it’s worth insuring your car with them because you get extra discounts and cash backs for buying tyres and driving like you want to live till your next birthday. And you get some of your petrol spend back. But, if you insure your house as well, you get more of your petrol spend back – as much as 50%.

But where it gets really funky is if you have investments as well, because if you are a nice client – and spend all your money with the same company – they reward you. And if you are a good girl or boy and do all the healthy, life-affirming things, they reward you as well – even with the investment products.

Trying to compare them all is likely to give you a headache – and even trying to understand all the ramifications of just one product can bring on a spot of dizziness. So, giving up on ever trying to understand it on my own, I chatted to Jackie Steele, a Cape Town-based broker who specialises in Discovery.

‘You have to work it,’ she said. ‘Keep your Vitality status up, and consolidate all your policies and products. If you take out an endowment policy, for example, Discovery will reward you by either reducing your admin costs up to 100% or boosting your investment by up to 26%. So, say you invest R 100 000 for 10 years at a growth of 10%, and you have diamond status and a life policy, Discovery will boost that investment by 26%. So, after ten years, you will get R 259 374 plus the R 26 000 boost that has grown by a guaranteed 6%, to R 39 678.’

But it’s really about putting all your financial eggs in that one rather rewarding basket. As an example, Jackie cited clients Mr and Mrs “Smith”. They are the perfect Vitality poster kids. Both diamond status, they go to gym, track their daily exercise with wearable fitness devices (they are not conspiracy theorists), have Discovery credit cards, life policies, medical aid, investments and home and car insurance. They are about ten years from retirement.

Last year, because of their diamond status, the Smiths’ life policy cashback was 55% of their total premiums for the previous five years. That came to R 75 000. And because they reinvested this cashback into a Discovery retirement annuity, rather than spending it , Discovery boosted it by 100%. So Discovery shadowed their invested R 75 000 by a further R 75 000, which means they have a total of R 150 000 invested. So both these amounts are growing, and will become available as part of their retirement plan at age 65. And they got a tax deduction for the R 75 000 cash-back investment for that tax year . By now – a year later – the R 150 000 (R 75 000 plus the shadowed R 75 000) has grown by the underlying portfolio return of 12% to R 168 000. Not bad considering the Smiths only invested their cashback money, which they had already spent on premiums anyway.

So the bottom line is, check the different products carefully – and I would get a broker to help you because they really are quite complicated. And then, once you have decided between Momentum, Discovery, Liberty, Sanlam, or any others out there that I don’t know about – stick with it. Do your research, think hard, make a logical decision, and then work it for all it’s worth.

BIG BROTHER REALLY IS WATCHING YOU

If you are a conspiracy theorist who believes “They” are spying on you, and are out to get you, you may not want to sign up to a rewards programme, because “They” track your every move. Seriously. I hit a rock driving through the Transkei a few years ago. I stopped, glanced at the totally trashed tyre, realised I would have to change the wheel, walked to the back of the car and opened the boot. Then my phone rang.

‘Hi, this is DQ Tracker . We’ve registered a high impact event. Are you OK?’

Granted, that was a bit surprising. I assured them I was fine, and that I did not need an ambulance, police or a tow truck, all of which they offered. Yes, truly scary and paranoia-inducing if you are a conspiracy theorist, but pleasantly comforting if you are not.

But, if you’re not careful, and you buy in to the system completely, “They” also know everything about you, EVERYTHING, even to how may steps you took that day! It’s Google on steroids.

Oops I better not say steroids, I might lose my shiny card status.

Really, how scary is it?