Great-West Life Life Insurance Reviews

Once a year, they send a statement, and you get to do the math to figure out your payment.
No online options for GW policies and customer service will find you annoying.
Long wait times even after they figure out what to do with your call. GW is clearly not integrated with their system.

I’ve had my policy for more than 30 years. It was okay as GW, but it’s just a difficult, unpleasant experience to deal with them. I don’t think they could be less user-friendly.

We have now spent four hours on hold to try and remedy a problem that is not ours in the first place. Absolutely horrendous customer service. If you can stay away from this insurance company - do. Save yourself the days of your life.

I have had several insurance companies for group benefit, and Great-West Life is the worst. They do their very best to deny your claims, sometimes with extremely bizarre excuses. I pulled out a tooth when I was with another insurance company, then I changed my job, and very, unfortunately, the new company was with Great-West Life. When my dentist submitted the estimate to do something with my tooth, it was denied with the excuse that the tooth was not pulled out when the patient with them, and that was in their policy. I had never seen anything on paper regarding that policy, and certainly, they could not show it to me in any form. This kind of behavior is worse than robbery and stealing, in my opinion, and this kind of company should be legally closed.

My husband was still working when he passed away in 2010. I was told I would be paid 75k. But because he turned 70 2 weeks before he died, I got nothing. They never told him or me that would happen. I lost our family home. 😭

Great-West Health/Dental insurance policy is disappointing compared to competitors. GWL only pays what a guide would indicate rather than what a service provider charges. This is a real cheap way out of providing health and dental coverage. My partner's insurance does pay the difference of what GWL does not pay (as her insurance company Sun Life has good customer policy). GWL has no problem taking my monthly fee but maybe they should change their policy to reflect other insurance companies. If my employer did not use GWL, I would not recommend GWL due to their cheapness (policies) in co-insurance.

If you have a choice, stay away from this company. They will do anything to not pay your claims. i.e. multiple short-term disability claims of my colleagues have been delayed in payment for months after their disability period. Cancer medication claims have been ignored over and over again. One of my colleague's husband passed away more than 6 months ago and there are still no payments. You can imagine the financial stress this creates. For myself, basically, every claim in the region of 100 $ + (over one hundred) is "randomly" selected for audit half the time then ignored after successful completion of the audit. The customer support line phone always has a busy tone. You simply cannot reach them. The online written requests get no answer. If you escalate to your company administrator, they will make statements that they tried to call you three times to clarify. They will state that you as a customer ignored them and therefore they do not pay. I can go on and on with these stories... Overall, this is a full-on fraud company.

I was forced to buy into group insurance. What they don't tell you is that it is a tiered system, meaning the high level management personnel receive extraordinary benefits on the backs of the mid-level employees. As middle management I was hit the hardest, my premiums were very high because of my salary, but I did not receive the top level of benefits and the already over paid upper management did. It still bothers me and when I left the company, I had paid more than 13 years of life insurance premiums that I was told had "no cash value". In a private plan, those premiums are often paid back to you, but I received nothing and was immediately without coverage the day I left the company. It is even incredible hard to get a clear answer what your benefits actually cover.

I appreciate the coverage offered but the customer service is terrible. The woman who answered my call was rude and condescending. I hope to never have to call again.