The Worst Insurance Company
by NoraF on Feb 18, 2022
1 out of 5 stars
My daughter started a new job with a company whose benefit plan is provided by Manulife. During her first 3-month probation period she visited her doctor and received a prescription for anxiety. Six months after she started her job she required hospital care for a mental health disorder. Since she visited her doctor and received a prescription drug during her first 3 months of employment, Manulife denied her long-term disability benefits due to her having a "pre-existing condition". She lost 9 months of disability benefits. Manulife self-promotes itself as supporting mental health initiatives at the same time that they deny benefits to mental health patients. Public, corporate image is more important to Manulife than supporting its clients with the benefits that their clients' premiums are paying for. It would likely follow that if a cancer patient started a new job with a company whose benefit plan was provided by Manulife, they would have to stop their cancer treatments for their first 3 months of employment or they too would be deemed to have a "pre-existing condition" that would negate long-term disability benefits if the cancer required extensive hospital care. Manulife focuses on their profits first and caring about their clients last.
Through my work group insurance I have dealt with many companies over the years...Blue Cross...you name it...but these guys are the absolute worst. They turn down claims based on a few dollars and expect the client to pay hundreds because they'll save 20. Not good enough when you are paying these people 40 or 50 dollars a week for coverage that you have no say in. It's just so unfair and disheartening to see a big company like this treat their clients like this. I would never recommend this company. Ever.
They have multiple layers of forms to fill out before they will process a claim.And if you miss any detail it is denied and sent back.
Enough to frustrate the most patient and organized accountants in the world....
I have coverage through my employer and every time I see an ad for them I hope people read these reviews as I would never deal with them if I had the option.
The only reason I continue to go through their processes is that I won't let them win.
I have co-workers who just don't bother anymore.
Our daughter has a heart murmur for which she has never received any treatment or medical intervention. Manulife has only recently allowed our her two siblings to be covered on our group insurance plan, after a full year of waiting. We have had to jump through all sorts of hoops and still our daughter, who doesn't even have to take antibiotics when she visits the dentist, is not a recipient of our family's benefits.
When I do contact Manulife they try to imply that they have no record of my husband's policy, because they never include his certificate number on any correspondence that we've received. I'm curious as to how they suppose that I'm receiving correspondence from them, because they certainly seem to have at least our address! I am very unimpressed with this company and their lack of desire to help.
He/she put me on hold for about 15 minutes and when they came to say they couldn't help me, the customer service representative, (admittedly I was angry by this point), pretended that he/she couldn't hear me. I demanded their name, and they simply continued to pretend that they couldn't hear me. I demanded to speak to a manager, and they continued the game of not being able to hear me....even fading their voice so that maybe I might think that the connection was fading out. I hung up and phoned back and guess what? The customer service rep that I got this time, could hear me just fine! And she was able to help me, quickly, I might add!
I get it, it's not fun to deal with an angry and frustrated customer and I was hopping mad, but just pass me off to management rather than implying that I don't know what I'm talking about or playing games with me!
Sadly the experiences that I've had when I've had to contact Manulife have more closely resembled my encounter with the fading out customer service rep rather than the lady who I later spoke with.
I just want our daughter, who is eight and as healthy as a horse to be taken care of! It's been over a year of waiting!
This company is so bad at processing your group benefits claims. Sometimes just reject your claims with simple reason "your plan does not cover this service", but actually this service is covered under my plan, and I couldn't see any reason that they can make this mistake except they just don't want to reimburse you, and sometimes the claim amount is even in hundreds or thousands. This kind of behavior is worse than robbery or stealing, as they can easily get off without any penalties.
Employers or individuals who are looking for benefit insurance, keep away from this company.
For a total $165 massage, I was only covered $84. Their "reasonable rates" for ON is the cheapest in Canada (which doesn't make any sense) at $106/hour so they only covered 50% of the total cost. That is an absolute joke - very very disappointed in their service.
Pseudo “Medical Experts” at Manulife, likely offshore, will decide if a procedure is medically necessary, even though Ontario medical specialists you have visited deem the procedure to be medically necessary.
1. Staff is not knowledgeable. Every time I've called the customer service person sounds annoyed that they had to answer the phone, have no clue what they're talking about.
2. Online claims take forever to process, previous providers have paid within 24 hours of submitting online claim, I have claims sitting for weeks before my measly 20% coverage is paid back to me.
3. Coverage is terrible at best, I know this has a lot to do with my employer as well, however it's unfortunate that a modern benefits provider would cater such terrible coverage.
I am under my husband's benefit plan and we have had non stop issues dealing with them. Every time I call them to ask them questions or try to get answers they have said your husband needs to call and we will discuss with him the plan. Even to change a password they said that I need my husband to call.
Also, they originally said that our plan started on the 10th so I went in to get my eyes checked. When I went to pay it was denied from Manulife. My husband called and they said the plan didn't start till the 20th!! What??? We were told that it started the 10th. All the guy said on the other line was "I apologize." He didn't do anything about it!!
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I've had coverage through Manulife several times over the years through different companies I worked for as well as once for life insurance. Each time an employer had benefits through Manulife it was awful. They typically do not provide packages that offer eye care or things like a visit to the audiologist. The coverage is also often very low such as $200 coverage for glasses. Well, good glasses from an eye doctor have cost over $500 for the last ten years. Or $75 coverage for an eye exam. Well, eye exams now cost well over $100. We've had to call a few times about coverage and they always put you on hold for extended periods of time and then come back and let you know that there's nothing for your needs.
The life insurance experience was atrocious. The people on the phone couldn't understand English and one woman thought that I told her I had tumors! I don't. Then another person lied and said we would be 100% covered through them for death and disability. They sent a package that showed we were preapproved for 100% coverage. Then after we signed up with them they sent another package that showed the underwriters had refused us full coverage and we were paying full premiums for partial coverage. Our broker working with us was very upset. We ended up switching to another insurance company. However, Manulife continued to withdraw funds from our bank account for six months! When I figured out what was happening and called the woman on the other end refused to refund the funds claiming that it was our fault for not calling sooner. I assured her that we would be blocking them from taking any funds from our accounts in the future.
Both my husband and I currently have Manulife as our insurance provider and I hope to be filing a complaint with our Human Resources group about it shortly. They're awful and I really encourage anyone who has a choice to go elsewhere.