Captain Fastbastard Mayhem

Late September / 1 October was the start.

Discovery website. The fitness assessment doc hasn't been updated as the assessment points haven't changed for 2016. I think the new points allocation and how it is now external to the "fitness points" is in the Vitality and Discovery Card Discoverer in the 2016 marketing material. Or you could use me as a source I am a broker specialising in discovery, after all. And yes, I do deal with ALL the other companies as well.

Yeah. And one of the first to go, when times get tough.

Just got this. Record high Vitality engagement levels on the back of the Vitality Active Rewards launch is impacting member service levels Good day Discovery Vitality members have entered 2016 with great excitement and enthusiasm to get healthy and get rewarded with Vitality. This has resulted in record levels of engagement in our latest benefits, Vitality Active Rewards and Vitality Active Rewards with Apple Watch. This has resulted in an unprecedented spike in member queries that we are working hard to address. January typically brings high levels of member queries due to benefit changes and we planned accordingly by increasing staff capacity. However, given the record engagement in our newest benefits, member queries are higher than anticipated and as such many members are not receiving the high service levels they are accustomed to from Discovery as a result of very long call waiting times on the Discovery Vitality call centre. To manage service levels, we are encouraging members to go to our website where we have posted detailed answers for their most common queries. We are also encouraging members to phone only if their query is urgent or complex, so we can better handle these queries. While we have already seen an improvement, our service levels are still unacceptable in our view. Based on our continued efforts, we expect further improvement within the next week. Over 100 000 members engaged in Vitality Active Rewards To date, over 100 000 Vitality members have activated and engaged with Vitality Active Rewards, which rewards members with a free coffee or smoothie for meeting their weekly fitness goal. The results have exceeded our expectations: Vitality Active Rewards members are exercising 25% more and have earned over 300 000 KAUAI smoothies and vida e caffè coffees. As part of our year end campaign to encourage members to continue to exercise through the festive season, 11 208 teddy bears were gifted to needy children on behalf of members who met their festive season Vitality Active Rewards goals. In addition, thousands of members have taken advantage of Vitality Active Rewards with Apple Watch, which provides them with an Apple Watch that Vitality will fund based on the member achieving their weekly Vitality Active Rewards goals. Your clients may contact you on some of these queries. For that purpose, find the answers attached and refer to the weekly updates which we will be providing in the eDiscoverer.

TBH, I think it's just for ease of use. Can you imagine setting HRR levels at an individual level, which move according to fitness levels and such? From a data integrity point of view, this approach is MUCH simpler. They get avg HR from the relevant source (all sources put out this figure) and then apply the calc. Simple. Oh, and it's NOT the med aid. Totally separate. This is Vitality.

The savings are priced into the premium initially, but become more apparent the longer you are on Gold status or Diamond status, with adjustments to your annual benefit & premium increases, as well as annual and 5-yearly premium paybacks depending on your Status over the period in question. Essentially, the policy gets cheaper relative to other providers, over time. It can get quite extensive, and Momentum are the only ones that compete with a similar offering, though their discount stops completely if you fall off the bus wrt their Multiply benefit, whereas if you go to Blue status, the savings are slowly whittled away over time. Correct on the latter part - Life Policy Premiums (for personal cover) are not tax deductible, therefore the proceeds cannot be taxed. If your wife / husband is the beneficiary, it is considered to be free of estate duty (4Q exemption ie no estate duty on funds going to spouse) but it CAN be Executor Fee-able if you don't have her listed as a beneficiary on the policy.

Negative. See above. 220 - age.

Must say, I enjoy the HuckToFlat test requirement...

The only Tranny I'd be willing to ride hard.

You don't have one!? Please tell me you at least have some group life coverage, or another life policy somewhere...

Yeah, they only allow one points scoring effort per day, but they recognise the largest effort.

JUst got this. Clarity on the Vigorous / Moderate exercise. I suspect a lot of us would be averaging in excess of 600kCal per hour, hence the classification. And the HR average is MAX HR based on age, not HRR. That should give you clarity, Gerald...

1.72/95kg. Nice. Fair amount of power right there. Anyway. Well done for the loss, man. Hopefully they won't pick on you anymore when you pull through the finish line!

Correct, per person, excluding fitness assessments. So his other half needs to pull finger as well.

On health only, just the Vitality benefits. Vitality status doesn't affect med aid benefits, as benefits cannot be risk rated on a med aid package. It's illegal. So the benefit for you would be: 30% saving on Kulula / BA / Quantas / Europcar vs 15% on Blue Potential higher savings on Healthy Food & Healthy Gear purchases (through a higher points count as your max annual spend is linked to your points count) More discounts on magazine subs Couple of other savings, but not as many benefits as you get as if you had a Life policy.

Yes, but don't worry about it. 2 of them cost R700 or so and give you the same points as 3 2 hour vigorous exercises. Screening checks - clicks or dischem

Finally off the BMC? (it was a BMC, right?) Nice ride! Do yourself a favour and get a Magic Mary / Rock Razor or an Ibex / Canis combo.

I'm the one lagging behind here. LOL> Only on 27,000 points, but then I haven't ridden since early December due to sickness and injury and holiday. Had a few 600 point workouts between the 2 of us, but nothing huge. Having said that, we should be at 90,000 by mid Feb.

Okay - breaking it down here. Online questionnaires account for 25,000 points between 2 people, and then the screening checks are an additional 29,000 points if you're a bit overweight and 35,000 if you're in the "ideal BMI" category. That means that if you do those int he first 2 weeks, you only need another 36,000 points between 2 people, or 12 "vigorous" exercises of 2 hours or more. Easy peasy...

In that case I'll ask the actuaries

yeah, it is. I've contacted them directly via FB, and asked my consultant to raise it as well.

Quite a reduction! Well done! Must be a different story on the climbs and fun bits now that you're 10 Coke bottles lighter. I'm just beginning on the path to reduce myself by that much. How tall are you, btw. If you were "just" 95 and you got picked out as a "juicer" back then...

LOL. Dude, I'm sure you're in the same boat as me. Actually, no. Wait. Your wrists are probably bigger than mine, with your weight training history.

they'll give you another one if there's a confirmed issue

Just confirmed that the additional 25% discount only applies to single gym memberships. Idiotic. Challenging that now.