Even if you belong to a medical scheme in South Africa you are probably worried about incurring massive co-payments if you land up in hospital. Perhaps you are wondering what extra medical cover you can get.
There is a way to pump up your medical aid membership in an affordable way. No, you don’t have to step up to a more expensive medical aid option. In fact, by using this technique you may be able to downgrade your medical scheme plan while increasing your overall cover.
Extra medical cover using gap insurance
First let’s describe what medical gap cover is exactly.
- Specialist short-term insurance companies offer products called gap cover. These companies have nothing to do with medical schemes: these are two separate entities entirely.
- Gap products are also called top-up insurance, shortfall insurance or co-payment cover.
- There are some variations to gap cover. Fortunately, gap cover policies are much easier to understand that medical aid terminology and terms.
- The idea behind gap insurance is to insure the portion of your medical bills that medical aids refuse to pay. For an extended stay in hospital with specialists in attendance you could easily be a couple of hundred thousand rands out of pocket. Gap cover will pay the shortfall amount.
- You can belong to any registered medical aid in South Africa to qualify to take out gap insurance. So whether it’s Discovery Health, Momentum, GEMS, Selfmed or any of the many other schemes, it’s fine. Find the full list of official medical schemes here.
- A single gap cover policy covers everyone on your medical aid plan.
- You can expect to pay the equivalent of about 10% of your medical aid monthly premium on your gap cover premium. So if your monthly medical aid premium is about R4500, then your monthly gap premium will probably be around R450.
- Generally there are no waiting periods relating to gap cover, but do check with your gap cover company.
Okay, I’m sold. Where do I get gap cover?
We can supply a competitive gap cover quote, then help you to sign up so you get immediate extra medical cover. Discuss your current medical aid plan with our consultants. They will advise whether you can downgrade to a cheaper medical aid plan while at the same time enhancing your overall insurance using shortfall cover.
Complete and then submit the form on this page
so we can get your personal quote to you fast!