Manulife Group Benefits Insurance Reviews

I've been on STD since February through my employer. Manulife consistently makes me jump through hoops in order to pay me, constantly requesting additional paperwork from all of my health care providers. My case manager is incredibly unreliable, never answers my emails, and never contacts me when they say they will. I've had to phone them numerous times to be updated with information, meanwhile, I'm behind on Bill's, have absolutely no food, and can't refill my medication. Mental health leave of absence is supposed to allow someone time to heal with adequate assistance for their wellbeing. This has been the total opposite in that being on leave is more stressful than working would've been.

Almost every claim with them is initially rejected or delayed for invalid or illogical reasons and involves consistent follow-up time, stress and aggravation. Below are just a few examples. Example 1: I have coverage only for myself; I do not have my spouse or anyone else as a dependent with them. However, for a standard claim for myself, I was told that I need to set up “Co-ordination of Benefits.” The claim I submitted was for myself. Therefore asking for “Co-ordination of Benefits’ does not make sense. Eventually, the claim was paid after several attempts and other incorrect replies. Example 2: For a straight-forward eye-exam (my coverage is 50% every two-years), and this exam was well over two years from my last one, they did not pay up-front saying that they need to “review and adjudicate” the claim before approving the payment. This was only a $59.00 payment, and should not have required any review as it is part of my standard coverage. It should have been paid automatically. The Health Tier I selected & paid for includes eye-exam, therefore this review is unreasonable. Example 3: I submitted a claim online with the dentist’s name, address, phone # etc. clearly entered. The claim was not paid and when I followed up they sent an email stating that “we need the name of the dentist who provided the procedure.” Note: It is impossible to submit an online claim without entering the practitioner’s info; the system would not allow a user to proceed without it. When I pointed out that the info was indeed on the claim, they then said they need the procedure code (which I had also provided). I then provided every bit of coding and detail (on a phone call to them) but still not good enough, I had to re-mail paper-work. At the time of this review, the claim is still pending. Finally, trying to have anything paid from my Health Care Spending Account balance is a nightmare.

I have been in contact with manual life in regards to my maternity for the past month and a half. There have been sometimes I get a manual life employee that is polite but the past few times I have had to be in contact the service is absolutely awful. They do not know their claims process, what a top up is. Tried to put words in my mouth saying I knew more than any of the manual life employees when I, in fact, advise the lady that if she works for manual life you should be a way of the coverage that you offer. She then proceeded to transfer me twice to voice mails. I am due in two weeks, and have been terribly mistreated and spoken to on the phone with these manual people and am incredibly disappointed. I wish I had the ability to change my coverage as they lack communication skills and are ignorant of their own procedures on how to process a claim or what steps need to be taken.

I fractured my ankle and went on short term disability for a month. After asking a simple question about whether or not I was entitled to physiotherapy recommended by the surgeon, under short term disability, the case manager avoided my question and went off topic, minimizing the severity of pain I was feeling. The case manager then deferred to the group benefits department. The group benefits department lied to me by omission. They said I wasn't covered for my physio past the $200 a year, but failed to mention I could carry over the amounts into my healthcare spending account the next year. I only found out this information from my employer. The case managers are not true managers in the sense of the word. They just parrot a script. I'd have a better time speaking with a chatbot. At least chatbots have an excuse for being soulless.

We, unfortunately, don't get a choice as insurance is chosen by my husband's company. We could not figure out why my son's dental visit was not fully covered but mine was. My husband called and asked and they said that between ages 8 and 12 they get 8 units a year but can only use one unit at a time. That means you would have to take your child to the dentist every 6.5 weeks to use the 8 units. 1 unit is 15 minutes. So take them every 6.5 weeks for a 15-minute appointment. My husband asked how anyone would be able to know this as there is nothing anywhere on their website, on our account page, or in any booklet anywhere that tells us these important details. She acknowledged that and said we should maybe do a pre-authorization before every appointment. I have 4 kids. How much does it cost them to do a pre-auth every time? Likely more than allowing my son to use his 8 units better. I told our dentist office about this and they were flabbergasted. The representative simply told us to take it up with our HR office but they likely have no idea about this like the rest of us. It feels like they could just make things up as you go. There is zero proof this policy exists except that they said so. They had nothing to show us or send us. I don't trust them at all.

My husband was hit by a drunk driver while standing outside his patrol car on duty as a police officer November 2016. After using up all of his sick time/vacation time through his employer, he applied for his long-term disability through his work as his medical doctor told him he would not be able to return to policing. His right knee, hip and lower back were injured and he was not able to do the duties required of a police officer i.e. run, bend, lift, sit/stand for any length of time, and there are no sole desk jobs at his detachment (we are a tiny community). He applied to Manulife in June 2018, less than a month after he was given his last sick time pay through his work. In September they emailed us to tell us he had applied too late. ??? It took us until December 2018 (with his lawyer involved!) to get them to see their error. What had happened was that my husband's employer had stated to Manulife that he had "X" number of sick days that he used after he was injured. Manulife calculated those sick days from the day his accident happened to when they thought they should end, which was June 2017. Manulife didn't ask about my husband's work or shift schedule or take that into consideration. Those "X" number of sick days were actually drawn out longer because they were actually doubled because of his shift schedule. He would work for 4 shifts then off for 4 shifts, so out of a 16 day period, he would only be using 8 days of sick time to get paid his normal pay when he was working. Manulife didn't take this into account. And even though they were given proof of income up until May 2018 through his work and his Record of Employment, they still used their own calculations. Manulife took it upon themselves to calculate what they thought his last pay from work was, ignoring the actual letters from his employer, Dr, and filed EI paperwork. And because of that, we are currently in a dire straits position as we only have my income currently to support a family of 5, one of my daughters had to forego university to work full time to help me pay the bills and that still isn't enough. Not to mention now they admit that the days were calculated in error (but they have no idea where they came up with that date of June 2017??) and they are now looking into his disability (to see if he is actually disabled!). It's currently 3 weeks before Christmas, I have no gifts for my 3 kids or extended family, all because they screwed up. Not to mention the legal fees we will have to pay unnecessarily due to their error. We got an email from them yesterday stating they want to send him for a third party assessment by an orthopedic surgeon, so God knows how much longer this is going to take. He is still on the waiting list to see a Dr in the city for his back issues (they said it would be up to 18 mos wait). The man was hit by a car. Seven people including other police officers witnessed it. C'mon Manulife!

Seems like whenever you want to submit a claim, their site is down. Tells you to call a number, you call it and, oh, looks like they aren't open...their site is always down. Zero customer service, digital experience is terrible and they're expensive. For company benefits please choose someone else, your employees will thank you

This was forced on me by my employer. First time I have ever had any sort of health coverage in my life. Thought my 3-night stay at a hospital for hernia surgery would be covered. Not. Guess I'm flushing money down the toilet on every payday. Now that I read the booklet I see many less important things covered but not hospital charges and it was only $765. The customer service guy was ok but the product itself is utter garbage.