When the South African Customer Satisfaction Index (SAcsi) asked 2,105 private medical aid policy holders in South Africa about their provider’s service, the were able to determine that the health insurance industry is satisfactory, having an overall score of 74.2/100.

Basing their data on six companies, the industry saw a change in the leading brand for the first time in three years.

Your winner? Liberty Health moved from being a below-par performer in 2014, to the industry leader, with a score of 76.9.

Here’s a table of the medical aid services researched and their score ratings:

While deciding on which medical aid scheme to take on can be a hard game to play, there are a few ways to get insight into which is best suited to you. You check out online reviews, ask professionals, and read the stats – here are more of those, according to Business Tech:

The overall satisfaction score is in line with other insurance products released in the past two months, which indicated slightly higher satisfaction with short term and life insurance brands in South Africa.

SAcsi looked at satisfaction with the three types of medical plans: comprehensive, network schemes and hospital plans.

This showed that customers on comprehensive plans were more satisfied (76.1) than those on hospital plans (72.2) or network options (70.3). Customers who have experienced rejected claims report dramatically lower overall satisfaction levels of 63.3.

Prof Adrè Schreuder, CEO of Consulta and founder of SAcsi, said that that overall perceived values are low.

Private healthcare in South Africa is becoming a grudge purchase, so these companies should be looking to actively improve the perceived value scores. It is particularly evident that the economy and customer perception of a lack of value had an effect as the industry’s perceived value score declined by 1.3 index points since 2014.

Only two brands showed increased value in the year-on-year comparison – Liberty and Momentum Health – but still, choosing a medical aid scheme reamins a headache. Especially if numbers do your head in.

That’s why you go to guys like Consequence, who will help you out according to your needs and make sure you tick the boxes you’re after.

[source: businesstech]