Great-West Life Group Benefits Insurance Reviews

I was an employee at GWL. As soon as they learned my wife required surgery, I was terminated. We lost all benefits.

Pathetic.

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.

Very dishonest by finding ways not to honor payment while taking very high premium.
I am requesting management to opt out

This is the worst company I have ever had the displeasure of having to deal with have been trying to set up my benefits package for a years time now with no response other than a number with a reference code that don't exist. They have bin deducting money from my pay cheques for the entire time and tell me I have no benefits with their company and that they have no record of me at all in their system. I would recommend everybody to steer the hell clear from this company.

This is the worst of the worst. Was put on short term disability for heart issue, doctor would not renew my licence and I drive truck for a living. Had to wait 7 1/2 weeks for first pay cheque, and was about 1/4 of what I made. The Evil witch that looked after my claim could not give a care of my condition, she told me that I was running out of short term disability and if I applied for long term disability I probably would not get it, because not being able to drive is not covered, and I live 50 miles from work.
I had several claims with this company, because the company I work for goes with GWL, and every time just very negative. One time had dentist work done and was in the dentist chair, and dentist was doing work on my teeth, they tried submitting claim to see if I would be covered, and GWL wanted to talk to me to ask me a bunch of personal questions to verify it was me, I felt like 2 inches tall. The only people I would recommend this company to is my enemy's.

Throughout the years I have had to deal with them for one claim or another. Filled out paperwork for coverage on glasses, my primary insurance company refunds the money no problem and I submit the remaining amount with receipt and paperwork. And they claim I need to fill out more. This is not the first time I've done this either, seems every time I've dealt with them they change information needed or claim they need more. Funny how it's only their company I have frustration with. I've had coverage throughout my 28 years of work and never had issues with any other companies. A company I worked for changed to to them for insurance and because I hate them so much I quit and found another job. I refuse to have them as my primary insurer, I cannot help who my wife's company has but I can sure prevent my pay to go towards them.

My company terminated the group insurance with GWL on January 31, 2016. All claims served and sent before this date were supposed to be accepted and paid.
My wife's eye glasses were bought on December 15, 2015 and after claim went through here insurance, it was submitter to GWL (sent on January 15). And they refused to pay it because they artificially delayed the claim processing up to February 9th! How ridiculous!
Beware of this bunch of scammers.

I have Green Shield through my employer and GWL through husband's employer . My claims are processed and paid in a total of 3 days with Green Shield. GWL is a totally different story. It takes about 2 weeks for them to process the claim and another 3 weeks to send out the refund :( I pay for my services with a credit card expecting to have reimbursement before the credit card bill is due but with GWL that never happens. Terrible, terrible service. I wish employers would boycott them and use other insurance providers as there is absolutely no excuse for such lack of time limit when processing/refunding claims.

I unfortunately have Great West Life as my benefits provider through my company and have had a terrible experience with them. They are consistently slow at processing your claim, and often taking weeks at a time. They have also on numerous occasions screwed up my claims and have repeatedly contact me for information that I have already provided them. It is not easy to resubmit an entire claim if you have already sent them the original copies. I've also had to deal with 3 separate individuals on one claim only to have to re-explajn my claim to each of them. This is a waste of my time and money. My husband has Sun Life and I have never had issues with them. They are fast and efficient at all times and provide detailed information of your plan and claims on their website where great West life seems like an archaic website.