Great-West Life Health Insurance Reviews

Give me a break! They put you on hold for hours and hours...they dropped my call 3 times in 1 hour...was on the phone for several hours to get one claim question answered. They do not reply to emails. It's a gimmick!!!

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.

This is my first time writing a review but I feel it is necessary because of the horrible customer service and awful benefits provided by GWL. They require paper copies submitted for any expense claim over $400 and even if you provide everything they ask for, they require to jump through even more hoops and waste your time driving around the city trying to get doctors' notes to substantiate your claim. The phone number they provide is ALWAYS busy, so you can never get ahold of them. Typical insurance company that tries to get away with not reimbursing you for the expenses that your insurance is supposed to cover. I have had benefits with 3 other insurance companies and this one is by far the worst.

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.

They will do anything to deny even a 100 % pay for a basic dental claim (filling) and they will make up a reason to do it. When I called and asked them why they paid 60% and I have to pay 40%, the customer service actually HANG UP on me and never returned my call. Worse experience I ever had! EVER!!!

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.

Had found over many years of being with them a consistent use of tactics to avoid effective service and transparency for their clients.

They claim on their annual reports all sorts of good-looking statements while
a. they do not offer updated transparency for both their personnel and their customers on their coverage definitions;
b. their self-serve website and claim services have not seen a meaningful improvement in years;
c. calling their call centre repeatedly on a certain claim requires clients to keep a very good log on every interaction since many times notes on those interactions are not accurate. Forget about "warm-transfers": you'd need to repeat who you are and authenticate yourself every time when you switch the person you speak with;
d. instead of streamlining their claim submission processes they prefer sending over snail-mail letters wasting resources (time, money, and paper) both for themselves and for their clients.

We feel bad for the morale of their employees which obviously suffers following such poorly designed, anti-customer satisfaction processes. No one expects GWL work for free or at a loss, however, it is remarkably sad to see layers after layers of their management ignoring again and again real problems in how they serve their clients and what is the real value they deliver...

With direct billing for dental I had no problems. The problem occurred when I submitted an online claim for athletic therapy on September 10th, 15th, 17th. I received an email stating that my claim was being processed. I thought it was great, and I'd be reimbursed within a few days. After waiting, and checking online for my claim status I was locked out of the website. So I called to inquire about the delay. I was told that they were behind and it would be 7-10 days. Then I received a letter dated September 21st (on September 24th) stating that they couldn't find my provider registered with any of the appropriate governing bodies. So I did a search online with the appropriate associations, and easily found that she was a member. Why is the burden of proof placed on the patient? I called again and provided the information required. I got another email stating that my claim is being processed. In the meantime I had attended a total of 5 appointments at $68 a pop by this point with $0 reimbursed. I managed to regain online access and found out my claims had been denied for the same reason. So I called again today and was very angry and frustrated with the representative who I told this needed to be resolved today. I literally am out of money and had to borrow some cash to buy a little bit of food until payday. Why can't a big insurance company find proof of registration and certification of a service provider when its easily accessible to the general public? I told the representative to call my AT himself because I was done dealing with this situation. My other options? Rely on pain killers until I become addicted or damage my liver and become a burden on society.

First thing, I would like to say that having worked in a CS field my issue was resolved pretty quickly but it was ridiculous that I went through four reps before anyone actually knew what they were talking about. The last dude that helped me was fantastic, the other three reps (one of em was named Jennifer) all working in Dental Claims just bungled things up with all kinds of wrong information.

When waiting on a claim my dentist input an incorrect address and of course my check was redirected back to sender, in this time I discovered the group plan website and set things right with my address and set up direct deposit. I spoke with my first couple reps clearing up the redirected check and they assured me that they could reissue the claim using direct deposit. I received email confirmation for the direct deposit (with 48hr turn around) and on the third day called in. today I spoke with Jennifer who assured me that the direct deposit should've been submitted by now and said she'd request a trace payment (2wk process) to track the payment. Later today my boyfriend checked the mail and the check from G-W was in there. Called back and spoke with a really nice guy who informed me that it was "standard process" for claim reissues to be processed in the same method as the original claim and that the check should be there by now (hadn't told him I'd gotten the check yet).

Long story I know...but three people in separate mediums (phone and email) all told me one thing and the last guy swoops in with this "standard process" that I'm assuming the rest of his colleagues should have been aware of. Honestly I shouldn't have had to call in as often as I had to get the correct information.

Anyway I have the check, all is good and hoping it doesn't bounce tomorrow for whatever reason if on of my four reps messed something up.

Quite horrified from dealing with Great West Life regarding the group medical benefits plan we pay into at work. After a dental claim was refused by GWL because my dental office booked my appointment 7 days early from my 12 month anniversary of that appointment, they refused to process the claim. When I called out that this fact isn't clear to members (most plans are as strict with the 12 rolling months issue), they indicated that there was no course of action for me, no way of escalating the matter, or getting any satisfaction from GWL. That's consistent with the rest of the complaints about this crappy company and coverage. It's table stakes coverage at a standardized rate and a lack lustre experience all the way around.
Take charge in your workplace. Petition for better service. Both dental clinics and insurance companies have it very easy - they are guaranteed payment of premiums by the employer (retaining at source) and no one disputes dental clinics maxing out their clients' plans.
The only one NOT profiting from this arrangement is the consumer who must pay for everything even when the service is REALLY BAD.
Great West Life - you suck big time!