702, Monday evening

Sure. I think it was quite right to ask, actually. And I thought to myself, I can't be the only one who has been so precise in trying to work out how much fuel I can get away with using. Discovery Insure has been looking at how their members have been buying fuel since the price started to jump so dramatically back in March. Robert Atwell is the CEO at Discovery Insure. Robert, good evening. I mean, we've all been trying to find ways to avoid paying too much for fuel. What have you found with your members? Stephen, good evening, good evening to your listeners.

Certainly, I think what you experienced and what you described is exactly what we are seeing in our data through the Vitality Drive program. We, of course, see all of our clients who swipe at BP and Shadow and exactly how they transact. I think interestingly, we see just volumes purchased really being down around 33%, speaking to maybe people considering to skip that long drive and people just being a lot more conscious about how they drive. But I think exactly what you're experiencing, something new that we're seeing in the data, is that smaller fuel purchases are significantly increasing.

Really, purchases of 20 liters or less are now really around 36% of your transactions, previously 25%. And that really is rational behavior because if you're expecting the fuel price to increase, what you are doing, if you have an empty tank, you're probably filling up just enough to make it to the next month, or sorry, fuel prices are coming down. And then, of course, if fuel prices are going to increase, you're filling up your tank as much as you can, even if the tank isn't completely empty. So, I mean, do we actually save money by doing this? I mean, we think we do. I mean, you, you.

Suggest that we're driving a little bit less, but we can't be driving a third less, surely. No, Stephen, I think what we are seeing is that really past the original March increase, we saw a slight reduction in driving behavior. But driving distance traveled is mostly really normalized. What we are seeing is that long-distance trips have been cut out. What we are seeing is that consumers are just under a significant amount of pressure, and we see this in the panic buying. I mean, we typically see right before a fuel price hike that buyers.

Increases by about 200 to 300%. In the latest hikes, we've seen about 400% increase in purchases. Really, people just trying to save a few hundred rand, and we see this through the smaller really fuel purchases as well. So, I don't think saving a lot of money, but certainly, just given the amount of pressures consumers are under, really at a point where every bit helps and everyone's trying to optimize. I mean, every single chain, you, your competitors, or the petrol stations, they all have different ways to save money. I mean, my own.