SA is seeing strong growth in demand for cheap primary health insurance products, in stark contrast to the stagnant medical schemes market, Momentum Health Solutions chief marketing officer Damian McHugh said on Tuesday.
Primary health-care insurance products cost a fraction of the price of medical scheme options, are not subject to the same regulatory oversight as medical schemes and offer a limited range of health services, such as GP and dentist visits. They typically cost a few hundred rand a month.
Demand is being driven by employers seeking to provide their workers with access to quality health services in the private sector to avoid over-burdened state facilities, McHugh said.
Addressing brokers in a virtual event, he presented data on industry trends showing the three biggest primary health insurance providers had all seen strong membership growth in the past 18 months. Analysis of health insurer spend showed more than half (53%) went to GP consultations and 14% to dental practitioners, he said.
Momentum Health Solutions’ health insurance product Health4Me saw its principal membership grow 15% year on year to 153,761 in July, with the number of lives covered rising 16% to 216,903 during the same period, according to McHugh. It covered about 170,000 lives at the end of 2022.
Most health insurance clients are companies that want better health services for their workers than the state can provide, said McHugh. Labour unions were increasingly advocating for these benefits too, he said.
“This gives quality access to people who may not have had it before,” he said.
Membership of the medical scheme market has remained flat for many years, hovering around the 9-million mark.
The high cost of medical scheme membership has seen an increasing number of people turn to efficiency discounted options, which offer members a discount if they agree to forgo their choice of service provider and stick to a network determined by the scheme, said McHugh.
He urged brokers to remind their clients that the government’s plans for National Health Insurance (NHI) would take years to implement, and they should therefore retain their cover for private health care.
Would you like to comment on this article?
Sign up (it's quick and free) or sign in now.
Please read our Comment Policy before commenting.