Great-West Life Group Benefits Insurance Reviews

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 recently was really sick on a trip to Cuba, I am from Canada. My workplace has "travel assistance" coverage through Great West Life. I read through their benefit booklet before I left and felt assured that they would have the resources to help in an emergency. This is a quote from our benefits booklet. "This program provides medical assistance through a worldwide communications network that operates 24Hours a day. The Network Locates medical services and obtains Great West Life's approval of covered services, when required as a result of a medical emergency" They talk a good game, sounds pretty sophisticated, and sounds like they have resources to help. Unfortunately, I was violently ill in Cuba. We are all given an emergency travel assistance card, so I tried calling the number on the card. It didn't work. And they had a special number just for when you are in Cuba. There was also some fine print that mentioned you may need to dial "00" instead of 1 if you are in another country. I tried this, this also didn't work. So then I tried dialling "00" plus "1". And it worked! I got through. Now I will certainly get some help....not so. They had absolutely no medical assistance for me at all. I had to go and find my own...in Cuba....while violently ill. The customer service rep was like a cold robot. They didn't seem interested at all in providing help. I'm asking for help and all the guy wants is my address, my phone number and postal code. Another thing is, you need to call the number they give you first or they may not pay your claim. They then give improper instructions for dialling outside the country. So your claim can be denied. Highly unethical company, to the point of straight-up fraudulent in my opinion. We need stronger laws in Canada for this type of behaviour.

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.

Calling in to their customer support will guarantee you to wait on the phone, as their call centre seems both understaffed and underqualified. Also the call centre agents are oblivious to my benefits and insisted I contact the HR of the company I am working for - what is their customer support centre's purpose then?

Website provides minimal information regarding group benefits plan to see what my coverage is. Coverage is pretty terrible for the money, some of the worst that I've seen from any group plans so far. Dental claims are often delayed or denied with no clear explanation. To give them credit, getting a pair of subscription glasses went moderately well, but even that somehow took longer than 4 weeks to process.

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

Pathetic.

I was forced to buy into group insurance. What they don't tell you is that it is a tiered system, meaning the high level management personnel receive extraordinary benefits on the backs of the mid-level employees. As middle management I was hit the hardest, my premiums were very high because of my salary, but I did not receive the top level of benefits and the already over paid upper management did. It still bothers me and when I left the company, I had paid more than 13 years of life insurance premiums that I was told had "no cash value". In a private plan, those premiums are often paid back to you, but I received nothing and was immediately without coverage the day I left the company. It is even incredible hard to get a clear answer what your benefits actually cover.

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.

My husband has Great West Life insurance coverage through work and recently I had a root canal re done and needed reimbursement for a pricey procedure. My insurance plan through my work covered a portion of it and reimbursed me right away. Great West Life on the other hand just gave us the run around by asking to stupid information (which we provided again and again) but they still didn't provide any reimbursement. They were worse than useless so if you think you have dental or extended coverage through them think again because they seem like nothing but scam artists.