MISA demands Discovery Health to bear the financial burden of claim errors
Motor Industry Staff Association (MISA) insists that Discovery Health should absorb the costs of its claim errors rather than passing them on to members, following significant overpayments on key health plans.
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The Motor Industry Staff Association says Discovery Health must pay for its mistakes and not scheme members.
MISA was reacting after Discovery Health informed members that the scheme discovered that certain prescription and over-the-counter medicine claims on five top plans – including Classic Comprehensive, Classic Priority, and Executive – were incorrectly paid at higher rates than allowed.
The error meant members reached their annual Above Threshold Benefit (ATB) sooner than expected, with certain claims incorrectly funded from the ATB during 2025. These claims have since been reprocessed to be funded from the correct benefits, such as Medical Savings Accounts or the Self-Payment Gap.
Discovery Health has since reprocessed the affected claims and contacted impacted members, informing them that they now owe the scheme the value of those incorrect payments. In some cases, the amounts run into tens of thousands of rand.
According to reports, the two largest affected plans include Classic Comprehensive and Classic Priority, which together cover more than 158,000 members and over 327,000 beneficiaries.
MISA said Discovery Health’s members should not bear the brunt for mistakes the Administrator made when processing the claims of its members.
“Discovery Health must take the financial knock on behalf of its members. It is not as though this is a bankrupt medical aid. The Discovery Group, a JSE-listed company, comprises of Discovery Health, Discovery Life, Discovery Invest, Discovery Insure and Discovery Bank.
“In September last year the Discovery Group grew its normalised profit from operations by 29% to R15.21 billion in the year to the end of June, with Vitality’s profit from operations up by 70% to R3.205 billion and Discovery South Africa’s profit rising by 22% to R12 billion. It is shocking that Discovery Health even sent the letters of the “error” it made to affected members,” says Martlé Keyter, MISA’s Chief Executive Officer: Operations.
According to Keyter the retail motor industry is still under tremendous strain despite the 2025 new-vehicle market recovery to above 2019 pre-pandemic levels.
Just a week ago MISA announced that employees at Motus Retail faces a bleak start to 2026 after 86 were retrenched and 579 impacted by remuneration and benefit changes implemented from 1 January 2026.
MISA is the majority trade union in the retail motor industry representing more than 75 000 members. Thousands of MISA members working at dealership groups are members of Discovery Health.