News just in from Discovery
As you may or may not know ( i have not yet written about this – I have now. ).
The Council for Medical Schemes and the Department of Health tabled their third draft of the proposed Demarcation Regulations for the Long- term Insurance Act and the Short- term Insurance Act in Parliament last week.
These Regulations are expected to come into effect from 1 April 2017.
They will affect all gap providers (so expect to hear more from your gap provider).
Discovery have released the following statement.
Discovery Gap cover products postponed to align with updated draft regulations
Discovery Gap Cover, launched in September, aligns with most elements of the updated draft regulations. Still, certain elements, such as the unlimited in-hospital specialist cover that our Gap Cover Extender Benefit provides, do not. (The proposed overall limit is R150 000 a year for each person). The updated draft regulations do not affect Discovery Supplementary Gap Cover.
So to provide greater certainty of cover to clients, we will postpone the implementation of both Discovery gap cover products to April 2017, to make sure they align 100% with the updated draft regulations.
The result is that we have paused sales of Discovery Gap Cover and Discovery Supplementary Gap Cover with immediate effect. We will reintroduce both Discovery gap cover products in April 2017, to coincide with the proposed effective date of the Demarcation Regulations. Meanwhile, Discovery will not accept or activate any application forms for gap cover products.
If you or your clients have applications already in progress, your clients will get a notice from us about this.
We apologise for any inconvenience that this unforeseen development may have caused.