Shaun Matisonn, the chief executive of PruHealth and PruProtection, has an almost evangelical approach to getting people to live healthier lives.

The two businesses have quickly established a presence in the UK, partly as a result of the Vitality programme that enables people to reduce their premiums by adopting healthier habits, such as eating more healthily and taking more exercise.

He says the two business have two shared goals, to generate business in the long term and to get people to live healthier lives.

"What we have seen is we can drive behaviour with the right set of rewards. There are two things we want from customers - we want them to adopt a healthy lifestyle in totality and we really want them to engage with us so we can keep them around for the long term."

The two businesses that form PruProtection are both joint ventures between Prudential and South African insurer Discovery and the Vitality programme is modelled very closely on the South African company's business model.

Matisonn says in 2003 Pru decided to launch a health insurance product partly because research consistently showed that consumers thought they had a product already and, looking around for a suitable model, they found Discovery.

"They went round the world looking for partners and knocked on our door in Johannesburg."

The two businesses then spent getting to know each other before the decision was taking to launch the joint venture and Matisonn was given the job of running it both because of his experience of the Vitality programme in South Africa and his work in the year spent developing links between the two companies.

The next 18 months saw him take on one of the longest commutes in the world, regularly shuttling back and forward between London and Johannesburg trying to establish the new venture before finally moving across to London with his family two and a half years ago.

Almost four years on from the launch of PruHealth, Matisonn says the business has been an unqualified success.

"It has been a tremendous success. There are 190,000 people, approaching £100m in revenue, strong new business flows and a very, very exciting road ahead. The core demand for private medical insurance is only going to increase."

In fact, it has been so successful in the health insurance market that other businesses are now trying to copy what they had first dismissed as a marketing ploy.

"Our competitors dismissed it as a bit of a gimmick but if you look at where we are today, they are all talking about health and wellness."

With the success of PruHealth, Matisonn said it was a natural extension to move into protection. One year on from its launch, Matisonn says PruProtect has not had as successful first year as they would have hoped but this is a lot to do with econ- omic conditions.

With around 2,500 people signed up to PruProtect, Matisonn says they have had to recalibrate their expectations, "The honest answers is we are lower than we would have liked a year ago but in the context of where the market is I think we are pretty comfortable."

When the product was launched, some people said PruProtect was too complicated but Matisonn says in essence it is a simple product. "Fundamentally, it is not very complicated. There are far more illnesses covered on the serious illness side, in a much more sensible way. We have a health and wellness programme that provides you with access to health partners and rewards you looking after your health."

The Vitality programme is clearly an imp-ortant differentiator and the business has been careful to protect itself from imitation. As well as copyrighting the software and systems that run the programme, they have also been very selective with the businesses they partner with.

"We have worked quite hard to protect ourselves. When we target our partners, we tie up on exclusive arrangements. We know on the gym side that our competitors have been trying to get to our partners and we know that they can't."

Earlier this year, the reward programme was substantially increased, with discounted cinema tickets and travel added to the range of benefits offered. Matisonn says platinum Vitality members, those most committed to the programme, can now get up to £3,500 of benefits.

"In many ways, it has been an exciting year. The Vitality programme we have today is really only getting going. If you engage you can potentially get your gym benefit for free, you get a return to Paris on Eurostar for £10, £25 for movies for the year, 20 per cent off Mark Warner travel."

This is just the start, as Matisonn says there are plans to roll out more of the benefits, such as air miles, that are used in the South African version of Vitality.

As well as the increasing choice of benefits on offer, Mattison is enthusiastic about the power of the web in changing customer attitudes and behaviour. By customising healthy eating plans and setting up exercise plans on line, he says they are changing the way that customers think about them as a provider as well as their own behaviour. He says this will have an effect not just on PruProtection but on the industry as a whole.

"I think as an insurance industry in general we have not done enough work on the interface of the product.

"It is a massive opportunity to really rethink the way that people perceive financial services as an industry."

Matisonn is also bullish about the future for both PruProtect and PruHealth over the next few years. Matisonn says there are opportunities for both businesses and as they are both in the growth stages, they will be less affected by a downturn than some businesses.

"Fortunately, as a relatively new company we do not have much to defend. If we were an existing company and were going from 2,000 employees to 1,800 employers, that would be one thing but we are still building to 1,800.

"We see opportunity. I do not want to be naive to the challenges that are ahead of us as the economy tightens but the core demand will not dry up. In fact, arguably some of the demands on the NHS will increase and we are well placed to take advantage of that.

"On the protection side, obviously we are linked to the mortgage market. We realise it will take longer to get to the numbers that we wanted to a year ago but fundamentally we are not a short-term player, we are a long- term player and again the product opens up a number of opportunities."

Born: 1972, South Africa

Lives: Hampstead Garden Suburb, London

Education: BSc, University of the Witwatersrand, Fellow of the Faculty of Actuaries

Career: 2007-present, CEO of PruProtection; 2005-present, CEO of PruHealth; 1994-2005 Discovery South Africa; previously with Commercial Union Life

Likes: Running, cycling, reading

Dislikes: Poor-value systems

Drives: Toyota Prius

Book: The World is Flat by Thomas Friedman

Film: The Dark Knight

Album: Woodface by Crowded House,

Career ambition: To build a great business and one that makes a difference

Life ambition: To make a difference and provide my children with the opportunity to do what they want to do

If I wasn't doing this I would be…Riding my bicycle.