The ICU Benefit Explained

The benefit adds extra cover for up to 5 days in an Intensive Care Unit while admitted to hospital for an illness. You can see it as a kind of upgrade for the Illness Hospitalisation Benefit.

The amounts covered are per day in an ICU. They are not in addition to the Illness Hospitalisation benefit, either one or the other applies but if you are in an ICU then the ICU benefit will apply.

There is up to R100,000 available to pay for ICU costs but it is broken up into specific amounts available per day that you spend in ICU (up to a maximum of 5 days).

Each admission day is calculated as 24 consecutive hours spent in ICU and each admission day follows on from the previous day.

For example, if you spend 72 hours in ICU then, with Level 2, you would have available:

• R20,000 for the first day
• R20,000 for the second day
• R20,000 for the 3rd day
• adding up to R60,000 for the 3 days

There is a 3 month waiting period before any new member on a policy can claim on this benefit.

Yes. In general, all hospital related claims need to be authorised first.

Authorisation is a simple procedure where the administrator and the hospital determine:

• if the procedure you need is covered by your policy
• if you have available amounts left over after previous claims

The authorisation procedure is described on the Claims page.