Discovery Life + Gym? or stay away

[peanutpakkie]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently paying about R589 x = R1178 for gym membership fees at virgin active. I've been contacted and told that if I get a life cover at Discovery, pay vitality and gym membership fees it will cost me less. I already have life(death,temp/perm disability) insurance with Altrisk.

What I'm considering is to get the life insurance death benefit only from discovery (since I don't trust Discovery with disability insurance). The minimum premium is unfortunately R350 for life insurance, R225 for family vitality and then R236 for gym. This totals about R836. BUT I need to pay initial joining fees for virgin active again if I join via vitality which is R2300 for me and my wife which if you convert it to per month (even though it is once off) it will be R192. This makes the total R1028. This makes a saving of R150 in the first year.

Now my question comes in, do you guys think it is a smart decision to go with discovery life insurance in this way? Or should I just top-up my current life insurance with the same death benefit and stay away? I actually do need to increase my life insurance....I've calculated that it will cost me R465 more to stay away from discovery.

The reason why I'm doubting my decision is, 1. Discovery has aged rated increases for the quote I have and is still more expensive than Altrisk with a fixed increase. 2. Will premiums with discovery eventually be more expensive? 3. Will it cost me more than the R465 I've saved to do all the medical tests to increase my points for vitality?

If I'm going to pay for the R465 in some other way it doesn't make sense? Or if discovery will have higher premiums in the future.... I guess I could save even more with the other benefits of vitality.. but I'm not sure.

I dono, what are your opinions?

 

[cerebus]

Vitality is pretty lame in my experience, with the only exception being the gym. Vitality food points are worth sweet buggerall really - I get maybe r60/month back on that. I never make use of any of the other features and I always feel pressured to keep my points up for some bloody reason or other. That said, the gym benefit is quite significant for us - including the cost of Vitality, minus what we get back on food points, we pay around r600/month for the whole family at Virgin. So, point being, just discount every other supposed benefit, and focus on the value of the gym membership discount.

 

[hellfire]

Hi everyone,

I'm currently paying about R589 x = R1178 for gym membership fees at virgin active. I've been contacted and told that if I get a life cover at Discovery, pay vitality and gym membership fees it will cost me less. I already have life(death,temp/perm disability) insurance with Altrisk.

What I'm considering is to get the life insurance death benefit only from discovery (since I don't trust Discovery with disability insurance). The minimum premium is unfortunately R350 for life insurance, R225 for family vitality and then R236 for gym. This totals about R836. BUT I need to pay initial joining fees for virgin active again if I join via vitality which is R2300 for me and my wife which if you convert it to per month (even though it is once off) it will be R192. This makes the total R1028. This makes a saving of R150 in the first year.

Now my question comes in, do you guys think it is a smart decision to go with discovery life insurance in this way? Or should I just top-up my current life insurance with the same death benefit and stay away? I actually do need to increase my life insurance....I've calculated that it will cost me R465 more to stay away from discovery.

The reason why I'm doubting my decision is, 1. Discovery has aged rated increases for the quote I have and is still more expensive than Altrisk with a fixed increase. 2. Will premiums with discovery eventually be more expensive? 3. Will it cost me more than the R465 I've saved to do all the medical tests to increase my points for vitality?

If I'm going to pay for the R465 in some other way it doesn't make sense? Or if discovery will have higher premiums in the future.... I guess I could save even more with the other benefits of vitality.. but I'm not sure.

I dono, what are your opinions?

Discovery also has cash back options, which may actually reduce your premiums below that of altrisk in the longer term.
Do you have a trusted financial advisor to help you with a proper comparison?

 

[hellfire]

Vitality is pretty lame in my experience, with the only exception being the gym. Vitality food points are worth sweet buggerall really - I get maybe r60/month back on that. I never make use of any of the other features and I always feel pressured to keep my points up for some bloody reason or other. That said, the gym benefit is quite significant for us - including the cost of Vitality, minus what we get back on food points, we pay around r600/month for the whole family at Virgin. So, point being, just discount every other supposed benefit, and focus on the value of the gym membership discount.

If you buy into the Vitality ecosystem, you actually benefit a lot. This isn't unique to Vitality, one always has to buy in fully to a loyalty scheme to get maximum benefits.
Healthy food along with the smartshopper multiplier gets me R7k back a year. 20% cash back from Incredible, Cape Union, Sportmans Warehouse, Builders Warehouse etc gets me another couple grand a year in savings, and then the travel benefits of 35% off airfare and hotel stays is huge (if you were doing this anyway, obviously).

But it takes work. You have to get to vitality status of diamond, or at least gold, to get maximum benefits.


If you don't buy in fully, like it seems you haven't, then all you get is reduced gym (which is still a great benefit). But you can't bash them for their scheme if you aren't using it properly.

 

[satanboy]

Discovery also has cash back options, which may actually reduce your premiums below that of altrisk in the longer term.
Do you have a trusted financial advisor to help you with a proper comparison?

You are supposed to get cash back after some period...my broker told me, but I have forgotten the details. lol

 

[initroot]

Vitality is pretty lame in my experience, with the only exception being the gym. Vitality food points are worth sweet buggerall really - I get maybe r60/month back on that. I never make use of any of the other features and I always feel pressured to keep my points up for some bloody reason or other. That said, the gym benefit is quite significant for us - including the cost of Vitality, minus what we get back on food points, we pay around r600/month for the whole family at Virgin. So, point being, just discount every other supposed benefit, and focus on the value of the gym membership discount.

That is odd, I get around +-300 back on my Vitality food alone pm. Not even going out of my way to eat healthy either.

 

[Aghori]

Go to the gym.
Take this supplement.
???
Profit.





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[yebocan]

Vitality works for me, been VA member through them since 2008...once off membership, pay no monthly fees....Get about R400 bucks back per month through the Woolies benefit...so all in all, I am a happy camper...

 

[Mr Feesh]

You can also get a membership deduction if you have a policy with liberty, The guy was at varsity a few months back. Was something like you pay R500 a month into the account every month and then after x amount of years you get your money back + interest all the while taking advantage of there policy benefits one of which being the virgin gym membership. (Full disclosure he was talking to some one else I just happened to over hear, so i might have missed something.)

 

[xrapidx]

Vitality works once you get to Diamond. But Its a mission now, first year Diamond, and it looks like my last - I'm not going to go for all the "tests" and crap now that you pay for to maintain the status.

I'm getting about R30,000 back next month based on my Life policy and Vitality status.

Wife gets between R300 and R600 back on food.

Gym is free.

 

[hellfire]

Vitality works once you get to Diamond. But Its a mission now, first year Diamond, and it looks like my last - I'm not going to go for all the "tests" and crap now that you pay for to maintain the status.

I'm getting about R30,000 back next month based on my Life policy and Vitality status.

Wife gets between R300 and R600 back on food.

Gym is free.

What do you have to pay for?

 

[xrapidx]

What do you have to pay for?

Fitness tests, etc.

 

[SmartKit]

You can also get a membership deduction if you have a policy with liberty, The guy was at varsity a few months back. Was something like you pay R500 a month into the account every month and then after x amount of years you get your money back + interest all the while taking advantage of there policy benefits one of which being the virgin gym membership. (Full disclosure he was talking to some one else I just happened to over hear, so i might have missed something.)

Liberty Own Your Life now pays back R50 every time you gym, up to the value of your membership. Joining fees at Virgin are currently R219.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Getting the 50,000 points to reach Gold and then Diamond in year 3 is really no problem. Just doing regular exercise will easily give you 15,000 points. Consider the health check important as it will give you a quick run down of where you at. The fitness test is a complete waste of time if you are moderately active. Without much effort I reached 60,000 points about a month ago (single member on vitality/insurance)

 

[xrapidx]

Think you need a lot more if you're a family.... My exercise points are already maxes out.

 

[hellfire]

Think you need a lot more if you're a family.... My exercise points are already maxes out.

Not really. Everyone does the online assessments, non smokers declaration and does a health assessment with hiv test. Follow up with regular gym (for everyone) and you should get there.

 

[xrapidx]

Done all the online crap here: https://www.discovery.co.za/discovery_za/web/pdfs/vitality/our_partners/points_and_partners.pdf

Gym is maxed out for both of us. (think you only get 25 points now or something)

Sitting at 39,000.

Only other thing I'll do is the health check-up - but need 50,000 points to get Gold again.

 

[MagicDude4Eva]

Not sure how you only managed 39k - sitting at 64k and did 50k month back - single member



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[ShaunyCT]

Zone fitness charges about R185 pm on a 24 months contract. The good thing about this, is that you don't need to be on any special/packaged insurance.

 

[xrapidx]

I see my wife hasn't done any of the online crap - lemme get her to do that today.

After telling Discovery Life I do not want a financial advisor on my policy, and them relentlessly nagging every couple of months - I have finally agreed to let them come see me after hours, so again I can tell them I'm not interested in their sales pitch, and I'm happy with the cover I have.

I think because of the payout next month, they're going to try and sell me a retirement based product to put the money in. That way it stays in their hands.