The Largest Medical Aid Schemes in South Africa by Membership Numbers

South Africa’s Council for Medical Schemes (CMS) has released its annual state of the industry report.

The 2021 report is of particular interest, since it covers the ongoing aftermath of the COVID-19 pandemic. The report details numbers of insured South Africans, across all registered medical aid schemes.

As a result of the pandemic, this number reduced from 8.99 million in 2019 to 8.89 million South Africans in 2020.

Of all covered members, there were 422,894 who were infected with Covid and made claims. 383,585 of them recovered.

Overall, the country has 76 registered medical schemes. That’s 2 fewer than the previous year, but that’s as a result of 2 mergers.

In late 2019, Topmed Medical Scheme amalgamated merged with Fedhealth Medical Scheme, while Selfmed Medical Scheme amalgamated merged with Compcare Wellness Medical Scheme.

Read: Does South Africa Medical Aid Cover Pre-existing Conditions?

The largest medical aid schemes in South Africa

As expected, Discovery Health Medical Scheme is still the largest by far. It boasts of over 1.3 million members and over 2.7 million beneficiaries. Coming second is the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS), which boasts of over 750,000 members and close to 2 million beneficiaries.

Bonitas is third with 333,000 members; South African Police Service Medical Scheme (POLMED) comes fourth with 174,000 members; while Momentum Medical Scheme completes the top 5 with 152,000 members.

Other than Bankmed with 106,000 members, no other scheme has over 100,000 members.

These are the 15 biggest medical schemes in the country, which collectively hold almost half of all medical scheme memberships in the country.

Compared to 2019, Discovery Health registered the largest decline in member numbers, losing close to 50,000 members.

These are the schemes that lost members.

On the opposite side of the spectrum, the Government Employees Medical Scheme (GEMS) saw a huge gain, adding over 71,000 new members in 2020.

These are the schemes that gained members.

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