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.

Not only do claims reimbursements typically take longer than 7 days, but the customer service is also terrible. That is if you can even get through to an agent on their customer support line.
What absolutely floors me is that insurance companies like Manulife make millions if not billions of dollars a year and yet they can't properly fund a call support centre.

Our company has Manulife and if I could change them I would in a heartbeat. Every time I need a question answered it takes a week or more just o get through they care about money and not about the companies or people.
This time around I have been trying since 2021 to get in touch with them and they put you on hold for more than 2 hours and then hang u on you.
This is a really bad company

Hello,
I tried to call to assist me because I forgot my plan contract number and wait for 3 hours but still no luck to talk to someone. Very frustrated and upset because Manulife is a big name and if this is their customer service then where to go.
Thank you

They don't help in claims. My money has been stuck with them for 5 months and they don't respond at all! Neither through phone nor email. I hate their service.

Never in my life have I had such poor service from a company.
Phone wait time is 1 1/5 and never got answered. Had to hang up!
Updating my banking info was such a headache for lack of HUMAN ENGLISH!
Decided to get the app..... got locked out of my account.
I am so angry and just bitter over this. Still on hold now for another hour AND STILL NOT ANSWERING OMG!!!

We are seniors and have paid into life insurance with Manulife since 2001. In the month of October 2021, we noted a payment of over $900 was taken out of our bank account on Sept 28, 2021, without authorization or permission from Manulife. There was nothing in writing notifying us that the monthly renewal premium would increase from $322.74 to $911.70 per month. It was shocking that this was 40 percent of our pension money that month which threw all our monthly budget out of whack!
When contacting Manulife we were tossed about 4 different people over several days and hours on the phone. They refused to put our money back into our account for 15 business days! We cancelled both our policies.
Money was put back on October 15, 2021. The money was removed from our account on September 28, 2021, which was 18 days after.

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.

Try to change my policy address and bank account to my US address and customer service doesn't know how to enter a US address. Kept me 70 min on the phone and then tells me there is a system problem.
Cannot understand a US postal code format.
Still on the phone

Everything is hard to do or find on their site. You can't contact them directly because their call centre is impossible to get through to and if you send them an email they say two business days to respond but it's more like two weeks, if then. Even the simplest things like changing your language preference which should be super simple are hard. On top of that, they cover less than previouse insurer and it's hard to find out how to submit estimates or find out why they disallowed charges.