Manulife Life Insurance Reviews

My deceased dad took out an annuity for my mom from Manulife sometime before his death in 2012... My mom's accountant flagged in 2021 that my mother was being taxed on an amount from this Manulife annuity that was not in her bank account. THE UPSHOT IS THAT MANULIFE HAD BY LAW BEEN REQUIRED TO MAKE A PAYOUT TO MY MOTHER EVERY YEAR BUT NEGLECTED TO DO SO FROM 2012 TO 2021. Yet they reported to the government that they sent the money to my mother so she had to pay tax on it. I called in April of 2021 and was unable to get past the guard of twenty-somethings whose sole job is to keep customers from getting the information they need. We talked to Rose, James, Ron etc etc etc - no last names of course. "We will provide you with that information in seven business days" No information was forthcoming. We called again. "We will provide you with that information before the end of the day" No call - no information. This went on through May. I said at one point that I would like to talk to Rose's manager "No, you can't" was Rose's response. Finally, in June one of them said that they didn't know who I was and I needed to provide them with my dad's death certificate and fill out a lengthy form as to why I should have this information. (They already had the POA I sent them stating that I was authorized to act for my mother) My father died in 2012 and a death certificate was sent to them in 2012. Another was sent in 2014 and yet another in 2017. I also had to provide my POA. This document was sent to them in 2012. "Just go to the file and pull the documents - you already have them," I said. "We won't do that" Was the reply. I resisted the impulse to say that "yes - my father is just as dead now as he was in 2012" That was definitely a low point having to prove that he was still dead repeatedly. Was satire required? "Yes, he faked his own death at the age of 92 in order to defraud Manulife out of a lousy $21,000 policy." We ran into a brick wall so I sent the package of notes that I had been keeping of every phone call to the Ombudsman. Lo and behold! We get a call from 'James'. "I am a TEAM LEADER," he said "I am here to help you" "You could start by paying my mother the interest that you earned by keeping her money for the last 8 years" "We don't do that" was the reply. After weeks of dealing with 'James', the money was eventually restored but we never did find out why the money was withheld for 8 years. Manulife is impossible to deal with. The action was only forthcoming because we notified the Ombudsman. Another low point - I was told that I needed to get my 96-year-old mother suffering from dementia to sign a form authorizing me to act on her behalf. I told them that, due to her dementia, she was incapable of doing so and YOU ALREADY HAVE THE POA THAT SPECIFIES THAT I ACT FOR HER. Avoid Manulife if you possibly can. They are terrible people. If you can't avoid them I would advise going directly to the Ombudsman so as not to waste the three months we did dealing with people on the phone. On an end note - we never did find out why they didn't make payments to my mother for 8 years.

Look elsewhere if you are interested in obtaining life insurance.
They will "double" your premium with two weeks notice if not less.
If you ask questions they will give you "sugar-coated" answers.
This company has absolutely no regard for its customers.

My dad passed 2 months ago. We called in to make the claim and were told 19 business days for policy funds to be deposited. Nothing was deposited after that time, so we called back twice and were told a rush would be put on it. Still nothing. Called the broker and he talked with them. They told him it would be 5-7 business days. Still nothing. It's now 2 months and Manulife says an adjuster will call us back.
Manulife is a joke. Never use them.
There are policies with 2 other companies, both of which have come through immediately.
Don't waste your time with an unprofessional company like Manulife.

After signing up through a representative over the phone I noticed I had been charged twice for 2 months on my credit card and after calling them I was told to forward my statement to their customer service email.
After doing so they just told me they don't issue refunds, so I have been paying for 2 policies totalling $600 a month.
After the first reply email telling me they don't issue refunds I have received no responses since despite my continued emails.
It's infuriating that they would take money from unsuspecting like this and just hide behind their policies to justify theft.

A simple dental claim takes them months to do an inquiry! Crazy company! I would not prefer this company.

My father purchased several Manufacturer Life policies in the 1950s, forgot about them after the 1970s more or less and did not know they demutualized in 1999 which means even a simple policy for $1,000 back in the day realized 160,000 shares by 2007 when he passed away. A few years later I discovered evidence of yet another two policies. Manulife refuses to provide any information about one of the policies - as though it conveniently never existed and in regards to the other they have told me my father purchased it in the US rather than Canada like the other ones he had when he was not even able to cross the border into the USA in the early 50s let alone qualify to purchase life insurance there. The experience has been a real eye opener for me. If anyone has had a similar experience or can recommend help with the situation, I would most appreciate it. So much for consumer protection. I don't see anyone doing anything about the old, unclaimed policies.

Everyone be aware that when your policy expires they will automatically renew it at a much much higher rate. My agent phoned me to ask if I wanted to renew my policy as it was coming to its end....10 years. I asked him what the new rate will be, he said he did not know but its much higher. I said I would not likely renew. He did not remind me the contract stated its an automatic renewal unless you contact Manulife. As a result I did not notice for several months they were with drawing from my acct. a 600% increase in rates, which they will not refund.

I was opening an RRSP account for my work spending account and spoke to the most condescending employee. I emailed a complaint in and this is it: Hi there, I just got off the phone and had a horrible experience. I had called to enroll in my RRSP account as it was the first time I was allocating my spending credits. I was speaking to a man and every time I answered a question he would completely misunderstand what I said and have me repeat it again (No, neither of us had difficult accents). It started to become every single thing I said he would make me repeat myself and he started sounding frustrated with me! I could hear him perfectly fine and there didn’t seem to be a problem with my phone connection because he never said he couldn’t hear me, so I felt like it was very uncalled for. I never have trouble with people understanding me... Then it got to the point where the employee was using the phonetic alphabet and I was trying to do the same to make it clear, but I never really learned the whole phonetic alphabet as I’m pretty young and we didn’t use it as much growing up! I know the basics, but when he is asking me to spell EVERY answer I say, we cover a lot of letters that I don’t know! So he was becoming more and more irritated because I was using other words… At one point I couldn’t think of what “C” was and I said “Carrot” and he said “Excuse me?! You mean CAT?” I was frantically trying to Google the “phonetic alphabet” while on the phone so that I could use the right ones. Both the employee and I became very frustrated and he later said in a really condescending way, “C-A-T that’s how you spell it” or something like that. It was very uncalled for and was a bit embarrassing honestly getting in trouble with some Manulife employee when having to open an RRSP account for my work. I’m not even doing this for my own personal life, it’s for my career and I’m getting talked down to so badly. I then asked the employee what his name was and he said “Greg”. I asked where he worked out (thinking there’d be a specific Manulife branch or something?) and he said “Excuse me? Why do you need to know that information?” I wanted to get his information because I couldn't believe what I was hearing. I became fed up and just went back to the conversation of my demographics because I just wanted to enroll into my RRSP account (imagine that). Overall, he got me multiple times to spell out my first name, last name, address, where I worked, and my SIN multiple times… He asked me to repeat my SIN three times I think and I honestly began to think it was a scam caller taking my information! He would literally repeat the numbers back to me and I'd say "yes" and he'd AGAIN ask me to say it! I then began just to simply answer everything he said with one word so it was perfectly clear and I wouldn’t get in trouble anymore. Everything was fine after that. It’s really funny when the recording prior to the phone call even says the calls are recorded for quality purposes. Who would actually speak to a customer like that knowing they’re being recorded? I don’t write complaints a lot, but this was overall really embarrassing and immature. I felt like I got in a fight with someone who’s supposed to be opening up my RRSP account?! I couldn’t think of anything more unprofessional. After a couple of minutes, I became so shocked at what I was hearing that I video-recorded myself on the call on my work cell phone. You know a phone call would have to be pretty bad to do that… Anyway, I just really felt like this should be brought to someone’s attention because that was one for the books!

My wife was making a claim on her deceased father and she was one of the beneficiaries of three sisters. Communication with Manulife is bad. It does not matter if you get the agency to communicate with Manulife or do it yourself, they put you through to the call center that has limited training and when asking for a manager or supervisor level for Manulife they will not pass you on to them.

I see a clinical therapist for years and was covered by Manulife under my previous employee. Now that I changed job, Manulife is still covering but on different terms and turns out they do not cover clinical therapists.
For anyone who knows, it takes a lot of time to onboard a new therapist, and clinical therapists charge less i.e. saves Manulife the money to cover higher costs. BUT Manulife just would not do it!
Even when I specify all the benefits for THEM: 1. I don't need them to pay the $200 sessions just to onboard me again to a new psychologies 2. They will only need to pay 5 sessions/year that I need with my old therapist at $175/session. They were just like "nope not your policy".
I feel like I am the only one trying here when there are clear benefits on both sides. I don't think that in all the communications and responses I received, Manulife cares a bit about mental health, because they are creating problems for my mental health when I am here as an open book to solve things with them.