Details
 
Medical Crisis Health Plan
The BCCCI Family Crisis plan has been running for 22 months now and there are certain issues that have been brought to our attention by the administrators, PSG Konsult. These issues are impacting on the risk of the fund and have resulted in the underwriters giving notice that a contribution increase will be required. The extent of this increase will be communicated in March with expected implementation 1 April 2009.

Given the above, and in order to ensure the long term sustainability of the fund, the following measures have been implemented:

Application forms

A concession was given to the BCCCI members whereby dependants would be covered for an initial period without the member having declared these dependants at the time of joining. This concession period has now expired and dependants will no longer be covered unless the principal member has
submitted an application form nominating them. We thus request that you urge your employees to submit an application form stipulating their dependants and beneficiary. In the absence of these dependants being loaded on the PSG system, only the employee will be covered. This will be implemented for all claims received on and after 1 April 2009.

Beneficiary nomination

In line with the above, PSG Konsult have advised that where no application form has been received and a beneficiary has not been nominated (part of the application form), and the main member passes away, the benefit will be paid to the beneficiary noted on the member’s Provident Fund.

Dual membership

In line with the policy rules, a dependant may only be covered under one policy. A child for example cannot be covered under the mother’s policy as well as the father’s or uncle’s policy. The family must nominate which individual will nominate the children under one policy only. Only one claim per event will thus be processed and paid.

ER24 Emergency Transport

You are also reminded that the ER24 benefit is purely for emergencies. Where a member contacts ER24 to dispatch an ambulance for an event that is not an emergency, the member will be directly responsible for the account and will not be able to claim this back from the policy. An emergency is classified as a life threatening event. It is important for members to be made aware of these issues and employers and trade unions are requested to assist in educating employees in this regard.

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ERROL WILLIAMS
SECRETARY