The Editor's Desk - Tuesday 9 December 2025: The R915 wake-up call

My insurance quote dropped 56% with one call - and it sparked a deeper look at what complacency costs us in business and investing..Don't miss out on future episodes of The Editor's Desk. Subscribe to BizNews Premium and get the podcast delivered to your inbox daily..Listen here.Read the full transcript of The Editor's Desk podcast below.You’ve read the headlines on BizNews.com, watched our BizNews TV interviews and caught up on the BizNews Briefing. Now let’s explore the latest developments and what they mean for your money.This is The Editor’s Desk, exclusive analysis for BizNews Premium members. Today is Tuesday, 9 December 2025. Good to have you with me.I’ve been watching more news television than usual lately, and something struck me about insurance adverts. They show ordinary customers — people who don’t look like actors — explaining how they saved R400 or R500 a month. It got me wondering: What am I paying?So today I called OUTsurance for a comparison quote on my vehicle — a Peugeot 3008, bought new in 2019. A fantastic car that has served me beautifully. For years it’s been insured with Discovery Insure. Emphasis on “has been”.My Discovery premium was R1,624.43 a month. Reasonable, you might think. After all, I live in Hermanus — safe, low traffic, no potholes. Not like Gauteng where I lived most of my life.But OUTsurance quoted me R709.A saving of R915 a month — 56% less — for the same car, same profile, same everything. And it took one 15-minute call.Discovery had already been messaging me repeatedly about updating my tracker or risk losing cover. Their model is clear: insure with them, bank with them, get life cover with them, and let the “ecosystem” reward you. Except, sometimes marketing is stronger than reality.Years ago, I nearly moved my banking from Investec to Discovery. Fortunately, Investec intervened and unpacked the numbers. The benefits were not what they appeared. I stayed — and still get a far better deal.Then today I saw a LinkedIn post showing a Discovery executive receiving free medical treatment, while my friend — world-champion paddler Oscar Chalupsky — was refused cancer treatment cover. Oscar was given three months to live years ago and is still fighting like the champion he is. It jolted me.I remain on Discovery Medical Aid and have mostly been happy, but this all made me think: What am I really paying for convenience? If insurance can be 56% cheaper elsewhere, what about other services?It reminded me of lessons from my Moneyweb days. In the early 2000s, South Africa suffered under Telkom’s crippling broadband monopoly. We were paying R40 per megabyte. After Seacom landed its undersea cable, bandwidth costs dropped to cents. Yet a service provider kept charging us the old rate — inflated annually — because no one revisited the contract. They never refunded us, and that’s the risk when you don’t check long-term costs.So that’s today’s message:Don’t get stuck in routine. Review your contracts — banking, insurance, connectivity — because complacency is expensive.For the record, my vehicle will be insured by OUTsurance from 1 January. They don’t advertise with us; I’m simply sharing something that saved me meaningful money.On the markets side, I’ll be reviewing Discovery Group as an investment. It’s only up 8.5% year-to-date after years of being highly rated. We may look at adding it to the Riccardo portfolio after deeper research.I’m also watching Famous Brands, down 18% this year. They’re still recovering from their ill-fated Gourmet Burger Kitchen acquisition in the UK — fabulous burgers, disastrous business.Today I interviewed Terry Boardman, the group executive overseeing their quick-service kitchens. He explained their new partnership with a subsidiary of Petronas in Malaysia. With 800 service stations there, and with Famous Brands supplying franchised Wimpys and Steers outlets rather than owning them outright, this is a sensible international expansion — very different from the GBK misadventure. I like the story.We’ll be back with the portfolio next Tuesday, before taking a short break.A quick note: our new Business Daybreak morning podcast is becoming remarkably popular. It reminds me of the early Moneyweb radio days in the late 1990s — and of the focus groups that insisted business radio could “never work” unless it aired in the mornings. They were right, though the SABC schedules made it impossible back then. Today, digital publishing means we can finally do it — and it’s a joy.I hope you’re listening each morning.Until tomorrow — cheers.

The Editor's Desk - Tuesday 9 December 2025: The R915 wake-up call

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