Medical aid price increases and plan changes for Medshield in 2027
Medshield has announced a 7.9% average annual increase for 2027 across its medical schemes, along with several changes to its benefits.
The medical scheme said the increase comes as it tries to ensure affordability amid a challenging economic environment in South Africa.
“Our focus for 2027 ensures that members can afford to retain private healthcare in a challenging
economic environment,” Medshield principal officer Kevin Aron said.
Along with the average annual increase, Medshield announced several changes to its benefits, including raising the age of child dependents.
Across all benefit options, the child dependant age has increased from 21 to 24, and select co-payments have been reduced or removed.
The group said this change to co-payments is aimed at “reducing out-of-pocket expenses and supporting affordability.”
Other benefit changes included increased access to mental health care and improved diabetes screening options.
Medshield also highlighted its partnership with Sanlam as a strong benefit for its clients and said it would provide access to several financial offerings.
“Medshield and Sanlam have signed a distribution agreement recognising Medshield as a Sanlam preferred healthcare partner,” the medical scheme said.
“Through the collaboration, members will progressively gain access to wellness, gap cover, financial planning, insurance, investment, retirement, banking and rewards solutions across the Sanlam ecosystem.”
“The collaboration also gives members and corporate clients access to Sanlam Gap, Sanlam Reality and Sanlam Wealth”.
Aron said the partnership comes as recognition that medical and financial decisions are closely linked for many South African households.
“Healthcare decisions do not occur in isolation from the other financial pressures people face,” he said. “Health and financial well-being are closely connected”.
The 7.9% increase announced by Medshield is broadly in line with the recommendation made by the Council for Medical Schemes (CMS).
The CMS published its medical aid contribution increase guidelines for 2027 earlier this year, which recommended that price hikes be anchored by 3.8%, plus “reasonable utilisation”.
While the CMS provided this anchor point in their guidelines, the group has an industry-wide overall weighted contribution increase assumption of 8.10% when factoring in utilisation.
This assumption is based on an evaluation made by the CMS in circular 21 of 2026.
Global advisory group TWT projected increases in global medical price schemes to be higher than CMS’s assumptions.
The advisory group surveyed 91 countries and projected an average global increase of 10.3% for 2026 in its Global Medical Trends Survey.
The survey projected higher average increases for the African and Middle Eastern regions, at 11.3%.
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