Great-West Life Disability Insurance Reviews

Suffered a major mental breakdown, two stays on a psych ward for suicidal, murderous thoughts...and they denied my claim. Psychiatrist i was seeing got on the phone and yelled at them that i was ill and needed long-term disability (i was in the room and heard the yelling)....long story short, they accepted me.

Yes, there is a reason that any correspondence you receive from them that case workers only use first names and initials when they deal with you.

All about making money and those that need it are rejected garbage.

I have rhuematoid arthritis, have been on LTD almost a month. The claims adjuster I have has the personality of a door knob. She calls and bugs me every 4 to 6 weeks. Even though I have anemia and elevated inflammation levels she still asks me why I cant go back to work? Maybe its because I can't stay awake and have deformed joints etc etc. She scolds me as if I am a child. I feel harassed and not sure what to do. The amount I get is a complete joke each month, too bad my employer chose this joke of a company.

I have been off work now for nearly a year and a half, shorted here, delayed there, given the run around, even told that basically even though they made the mistakes it was still my problem.
Now on LTD and getting more run around. They are deduction a third, of what was already just over half of what I made when I could work, for CPPD.
Sent me the forms well in to the LTD portion of my claim and even with that Service Canada has had my paperwork for 9 weeks and nothing from them or GWL seems to be getting resolved. Both parties know that I am struggling and both parties delays are causing a great hardship.
But I cant blame Service Canada. GWL sent forms to me so they could contact SC regarding my claim for both LTD and CPPD. According to GWL they have not received these forms, yet when I speak to CPPD at Service Canada they have the forms from GWL that I signed so these parties could communicate directly with one another.
My case manager at GWL said the only way to resolve the issue was for her to send me another form to sign and send back to her. This will be the third time this has been done. That was on August 23rd. I received the forms as well as a letter, dated August 23, stating that I must have the form filled out and returned to them by Sept 1. I got the letter from her in my mailbox on the morning of August 31. IT TOOK 8 DAYS TO ARRIVE AND I WAS SUPPOSED TO HAVE BACK TO HER IN UNDER 24 HOURS!!
Did I mention that I live in the Edmonton area and my case manager is in Winnipeg???!! And did I mention that there is an office in Edmonton that I could pick up these forms from and hand deliver them back to them, or even fill out in person and hand right back to them??!! It doesn't matter at any rate because they don't allow that.

Any and every excuse to short pay, late pay, not pay and make it your fault and your problem.

I am still on LTD and have two different doctors that have to sign off for me to return to work and both of them say I'm not ready, if I'm ever able to return. So I am stuck at the mercy of GWL and their BS ways.
I'm grateful for my partner and that she has been able to help cover some of the shortfall caused by GWL. If it wasn't for her I would be homeless. Even telling GWL this was met with 'Maybe you need to consider your other options..' WHAT OTHER OPTIONS GWL??
I cannot currently work, if I do work while I'm told I can't GWL will deduct from or completely cancel my LTD.

The worst part of it is, they do this every day to many of their clients, and some of them have no supports and end up losing everything, thanks to an insurance company who supposedly has their 'clients' best interest in mind.

WORST EXPERIENCE EVER!!

So I had a short term disability claim. I will be honest I had waited quite a while before I submitted it for personal reasons. This however does not justify the following.

1st, I submitted my claim as a short term claim. I was told it would take approx one week for it to get processed and to a claim manager. 19 days later I noticed the women I was dealing with kept typing "long term claim" and it took an additional week to convince her otherwise.

So a manager calls me to apologize for the error and tells me my claim will now be rushed. Great right?

A week later I still hear nothing so I call in and email some more.

They deny my claim because "I had waited longer then the 10 limit to submit my claim" No where on any paper work did I read there was a 10 window.

So back to the grind, luckily I write contracts for a living. I am good at what I do. So after describing to her in very small words just how wrong she was I was told her manager would double check her work. At this point I demanded her managers FULL name and email. They will fight you on this but it is important to know in case you end up taking legal action.

Eventually she realized I was right and would not give up my fight. (I am Irish I will spend any money to not be taken advantage of)

My claim is now approved. She informs me accounting will take 2-3 days to deposit my funds.

2 weeks I wait. So back to the phone. I am repeatedly told to just give it another day or two. Turns out they mailed me a check, to an address I rarely use.

The whole process is a nightmare. They will automatically deny your claim to save money and pad their bonus account. You will have to dig in and fight. Be polite, and angry. Do not give up your fight. Make them know you have every intention of winning. Or even better, choose ANY other insurance company. This was not my first issue with GWL but it certainly will be my last.

Good luck.

My experience with GWL has been nothing but awful. I'm currently out on disability (have been since Nov.), and all they have done is give me the run around. They paid my claim up to Dec. 2 and refused to pay further. I started the appeal process right away and have still gotten no where with them.
The customer services is a joke. The person that I deal with doesn't even pretend to care. On multiple occasions, she's said "I'll look over your information or whatever and get back to you." Whatever? Really? Talk about lack of professionalism. She has also flat out lied about faxing out important documents to my doctor to fill out.
Ex. She said she had faxed a questionnaire for my doctor to fill out to move the appeal process along. I then found out that she didn't fax it until 6 days after my conversation with her. She misspelled my name on part of the questionnaire and put on it symptoms that I never said I had.
As of today, I left her a message informing her that I knew she was lying and that if my claim is not approved by the end of next week, I'll be going above her.
My advice: Avoid GWL like the plague and spread the word that they are a company that doesn't care about helping people. If you are unfortunate enough to have to deal with them at some point, just remember: They want to wait you out and force you back to work. Don't let them. Stay on top of your claim and call them daily.

Today I received a call for an update, very normal. Yet she wanted to know where I was calling from.... The only reason it bothered me was because she heard over head speakers. Was she thinking I was... Where dunno it was just such a weird, very abrupt question. What are my rights?

Just a terrible experience. Severely injured my back years ago, had a successful short term disability claim, and a semi-successful long term claim. The 2 years of long term coverage was nearly up at which point I was sent for a physical assessment. It took me 2 months to get the results which are extremely innacurate, they seem to describe another person.
My appeals have all since been denied, information I know has been submitted goes missing, phone conversations are incorrectly documented and I am continually told that anything submitted is lacking details.
To be fair, the agent I deal with seems to sympathize but is left hanging by company policy.

Case manager tells me we can help you see a specialist earlier then a couple days later tells me we won't help you because it won't save us any money

I've been constantly harassed with requests for forms and reports. After I sent one thing they claim they need something else.

I had little to no communication with the case manager

Now that they only pay for my life insurance premiums, they continue their harassment of request for forms and report to the point that it almost costs me more to pay for all those forms and reports than the actual insurance premiums they pay

I've had the displeasure of dealing with GWL for 4 seperate Short-Term Disability leaves due to a chronic illness. All they care about is getting you back to work, even if you are struggling horribly and have no quality of life. In the last year I've missed a total of 5 months of work yet with every claim they act like it's some short-term illness that will clear up soon. I have proper documentation from my GP as well as a specialist, and my doctor is frustrated with them as well. If you have to fax something in, be prepared to fax it a dozen times yet still have them claim they never received it and threaten not to pay you. This has happened with EVERY claim I've made, and I triple checked the fax number, and confirmed it sent. I'd call after sending to let them know I sent it, only to get a call back A WEEK later telling me it never came. They never answer their phones which is not a big deal, but they take a week to return calls. My claims adjustor does not seem to actually be aware of what my condition is, as I am constantly having to remind her of my limitations despite the fact that my doctor details all of this in the forms he sent in to them. The stress of dealing with them is sure not making things any easier on me.