Great-West Life Group Benefits Insurance Reviews

Always a busy tone when calling customer service. Could not speak to anyone for over a month now, not even their switchboard could reach them, yet switchboard would say that they're experiencing high call volume, so then why isn't that message on their recording when calling in to make customers know what the heck is happening instead of a damn busy tone!!! This is all nonsense!!! 1.4 RATING FROM 133 REVIEWS!!! My husband claims are all selected for audit even though I've been submitting his claims via online, sent proof of the receipts, yet they would email countless times asking for proof, ARE YOUR EMPLOYEE INCOMPETENT??? CAN'T THEY OPEN RECENT ATTACHMENTS??!!! SO FRUSTRATED!!! LOOK at your rating, your service is crap and surprisingly there has been no significant changes even with the constant negative reviews. SHAME!!!

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 have this insurance company with my employer and good grief does it ever suck. I had Greenshield with my last employer. For the last few years, Greenshield billed the pharmacy directly without making the employer pay extra. If having to submit your receipts for drugs is not annoying enough, you have to do it by mail. What a craptacular company. Their website works, apart from GroupNet. Every time you go to their website, you get the following message. I have been trying since Friday night and still see the same message. Need I say more. Site Temporarily Unavailable. We are sorry this site is only available. We are working to restore service as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. Return to Great-West Life website: Click here to return to the Great-West home page. This is the worst insurance company in all of Canada! I cannot believe I have to send prescription receipts again through Canada Post to get reimbursed (80%). They mail you the cheque and explanation entirely in French on top of that, no English anywhere. If you don't parler Francais, you will not understand most of it. The form I submitted was in English as were the receipts for meds prescribed by a doctor in Ontario. I have no idea what the letter says and short sentences in Eng are long in Fr. I would have to type it in Google translate, as they do not use email. I know this is a bilingual country, but do they seriously expect everyone to know French. Moreover, they don't even cover the prescription strength (a strength not available OTC), generic allergy medication, the same one Greenshield covered. Maybe that is why their explanation of my benefits for the receipts was in French? So unimpressed.

Unfortunately, my husband has a group plan with this company. They provide the worst customer services, the hotline often gets disconnected. They refused claims even though we provided all the documentation they requested. I'm just hoping their company will choose another insurance company with better credibility, I can’t wait for this nightmare to end soon.

I have GWL health and dental coverage through my workplace. My husband has a different insurance company. Previously with coordination of benefits, we wouldn't pay much more than about $50 for any dental claims because GWL would cover whatever my husband didn't quite cover. Ever since the new 2018 dental fee guide has come out, they no longer cover anything more than the fee *guide* outlines. This guide is woefully lower than reasonable dental costs. Now GWL has left us paying upwards of 1/3 of dental costs. This is ridiculous. When I call to ask why their policy has changed, they just say it's because of the fee guide and plead ignorance. What a horrible company. If I could switch, I would.

I'm under company insurance, the insurance covers for orthotics appliances. I went to the doctor to check and buy the orthotics appliances but when I claimed on the insurance policy, they've replied the doctor is not covered by the plan. And also they refuse to pay back for orthotics appliances. This company is a fraud just trying to steal money from people. Please look for a different insurance company to save yourself.

This company makes filing a claim intentionally difficult, often stalling claims indefinitely without requesting further information, just so they don't have to pay out. I was switched to GWL by my employer and I've been shocked by how terrible this company is in comparison to my previous insurance provider. Keeping claims difficult and frustrating appears to be this company's cost-saving strategy.

Paid my dues for over 7 years for employee benefits. There rep came to our company and assured us and I quote "Don't worry, if anything happens we'll take care of you! No problems."

Over this 7 year period they recieved over 16, 800.00 dollars on my behalf.

In 2016 I was in a bad car accident and ended up with severe post concussion syndrome. They did everything they could to deny me and left me in the dust.

So I lost my 26 dollar an hour job because of my condition and couldn't drive a truck anymore. Now I survive on a meager provincial disability stipend as I can't work yet.

Don't do business with these people, they are your typical greedy self-centered corporation. They lie and don't deliver what they promise.

I hope you spent my 16K on something nice for yourselves...

I applied for short term disability in June 2016 through my employer. The 1st case manager Logan M. lied to me over the phone that my claim was approved and just needed to finish the calculations, and I'd likely to see first payout by next Friday. About 2 weeks went by with me chasing her as to what's going on. After complaining to my employer about lack of response, Logan M. told me that my claim was declined because my employer said I shouldn't have stopped my medication years ago. My specialist doctor told me to wean off it and completely stop it, because there's bad long-term side effects. The wait to see the specialist doctor was months long to get my medication refilled. My employer said that they do not influence any claim decisions at all. I escalated at Great West Life and was assigned a 2nd case manager Sara S. After I got in to see the specialist doctor and was on my medication again, my claim was denied again - Sara S. said to me over the phone that I should have been taking Tylenol and working during the long wait for a specialist doctor. They denied my claim again, on basis that I wasn't severe. I told my family doctor that Great West Life was giving me the run around, she wrote a doctor's note and told me to apply for EI sick benefits. She was right, I had no problem getting my claim for EI sick benefits approved. Great West Life case managers will lie and manipulate your words over the phone. I consulted a disability lawyer because they take cases on contingency basis, he said there wasn't much money left for him to chase. EI sick benefits payments are deducted from short-term disability calculatons, so the crooked insurance company Great West Life won by declining you repeatedly until you give up. Unless you have something that's "definite", like surgery or being in the hospital... anything "subjective" or episodic disability will be repeatedly declined so they wear you down by forcing you to provide all kinds of evidence that you're "severe". Be warned, everything they ask you to get to back up your claim, they're actually using all of that to manipulate it so they build a case against you. Also, I'm in Calgary, they assigned Ontario reps that are off work at 1pm my time... adding to the difficulty of getting a hold of them. There's a reason why they only provide their first name and the first initial of their last names, they're unethical... after one phone call with each of the case managers, I refused to talk to them over the them, requiring everything via email... it helped stop some of their lying and manipulation over the phone with you. I wonder how these case managers sleep at night, they're incentized to decline as many cases as they can, it's how their performance bonus works.

My husband has GWL through his employer and needed dental work done. He did a "predetermination" through the dentist's office, and got a quote back regarding how much was covered. The day of the surgery, the dentist found other things wrong and had to add to the list of services done. Most of the services were covered 100% through our insurance. A week after the surgery, GWL informed us we needed more information via mail. The dentist's office quickly sent original copies as requested by the insurance company. It has now been 9 business days since providing them with the necessary information and we have hit a wall. When my husband contacted GWL he was met with an "I don't care attitude" by the representative and given no estimated time for the claim to go through as they are "back logged for 2 weeks". The representative was unapologetic and seemed annoyed that my husband was even asking about this claim that we have now been dealing with for almost a month. I do not recommend this company to anyone! If you have this insurance company, my best suggestion would be to make sure anywhere you go does direct billing. I will be happy to leave this company once we are finally done dealing with this first and last claim.