Membership Advantage
What was Membership Advantage?
Membership Advantage was an additional set of benefits (comprised of a funeral allowance and other accident-related benefits). For a number of years it was added to Southern Cross health insurance policies for members of employer work schemes that were linked to Business New Zealand and the Employers and Manufacturers Association.
See the Membership Advantage summary of benefits.
Membership Advantage errors
Following a review, Southern Cross decided to no longer offer Membership Advantage as part of its health insurance offering, and removal from Southern Cross policies took effect as at 30 September 2020.
In effecting the closure of Membership Advantage some errors have been identified. These include premium having been incorrectly charged to members who turned 65 years old and, in some cases, the summary of benefits not being provided to members. We’re now correcting this.
We’re contacting affected members and employer groups, including those who no longer have a policy or a work scheme with us:
- We’ll provide a copy of the summary of benefits to members who did not receive one. There will also be an opportunity for members who didn’t receive a summary of benefits to contact us if they believe they were entitled to make a claim for one of the Membership Advantage benefits.
- We will apply a credit or refund as remediation for the errors.
- The credit or refund will include an allowance for the ‘time value of money’ (based on the time between the error occurring and the credit or refund being made).
What do you need to do?
If either of these errors impact you, you’ll receive an email or letter from us advising whether we need to refund or credit any incorrectly charged premium to you.
Employer groups
- We will refund an employer group if the organisation paid the Membership Advantage premium.
- If we’ve contacted you to provide us with your employer work scheme bank details, we’d like you to complete this secure form. You must be authorised to complete the form on behalf of the organisation.
- Once we’ve processed your completed form, we will refund you within 20 working days.
Members
- If you’re an existing member, we may apply a premium credit to your policy.
- For some affected members, due to your payment arrangement, we may need to refund you. Also, if you’re no longer with Southern Cross and you’re entitled to a refund, we’ll be in touch regarding the bank account we have on record and check with you before paying the refund into this account.
- If we don’t have your bank account details, or you want us to pay the refund in'to a different account, we’ll be asking you to complete this form. Once we’ve processed your completed form, we will refund you within 10 working days.
- If after checking the Membership Advantage summary of benefits you believe you’re entitled to claim under any of the Membership Advantage benefits, you’ll need to contact us on 0800 800 181 within 28 days of the date of the communication and we’ll advise next steps.
Provide your bank details Verify your date of birth
If you have any questions relating to this, please contact us.
Withdrawal of Membership Advantage – updated in response to COVID-19
We stopped collecting premium for Membership Advantage from 30 June 2020 after earlier advising members that it was no longer being offered.
In recognising the challenges caused by COVID-19, we extended the time the Membership Advantage benefits were available to qualifying and existing members until 30 September 2020. We did not charge a premium for these benefits during this period.
FAQs
-
What were the errors identified in the review process?
-
I’m an existing member and due to receive a credit, how will this be applied?
-
Who receives the refund / credit?
-
What does “time value of money” mean?
-
Who can complete the employer work scheme bank account form?
-
How will I know if I’m due a credit or refund?
-
What if I had Membership Advantage and have made a claim under it already?
-
Why have you reimbursed me for a very small credit or refund amount?
-
Is there an option to continue the Membership Advantage cover?
-
Why are you no longer offering Membership Advantage?
-
How much was the Membership Advantage premium?
-
Who was eligible for Membership Advantage?
-
I don’t recall seeing anything about Membership Advantage
-
We may have been able to claim against these benefits. What should we do?