Great-West Life Health Insurance Reviews

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.

If there was less than one star - that's how I would rate. Be careful if your work goes through these guys. They do not care if you are ill, they don't care if you can no longer afford treatment or medication. They misuse facts, they will misinterpret doctors and specialists reports - their main goal is to save the company money. My life has been ruined by these guys - I am about to lose my home, my whole life. And now I cannot afford my medication - so what's the use? Next step: lawyer and media. Too many people at work they have done this to.

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.

My experience with GWL was horrific right from day one. I wish I knew then what I know now. First of all, if they tell you something, it may or may not be the truth. Don’t trust them one bit. Keep your guard up. Protect yourself by printing out all your emails and record ALL phone conversations with them. Thankfully, I had a medical provider that gave me great advice at the start of my claim to journal and record everything as she was super frustrated and concerned how I was being treated right from the very beginning. It was not just concerns about one staff member, it was multiple and also multiple levels of management involved. GWL has admitted that my concerns are serious and have had negative consequences. I was told that after an investigation in June 2018 involving the director and regional manager that I would be provided the results of the investigation including what GWL has done to address the situation, any recommendations GWL has put forward and executed on, anything GWL has done to put in place such as policies and procedures to ensure this experience isn’t experienced by others, and answers to my questions. I did involve the ombudsman numerous times with no results. I found out the ombudsmen are paid by GWL. Despite my proof in the form of recordings, documentation and witnesses, they have yet provided me with any documentation that demonstrates they have taken this seriously by demonstrating to me that they did what they said they would do. It has been 5 months and still nothing.

This provider is tracking each health-related submitted claim three years backdated and calling and intimidating our health providers, questioning services, billable time and dates. Great-West Life is a parody and if we don’t check for reimbursement upon submitting a claim, they just find loopholes to not pay or to state that there are customary fee restrictions. Nonsense and not much else. Unfortunately, we are ill enough to require “covered” services and they are evil enough to keep questioning each service we have sought and requested reimbursement for. I guess that because we won’t back down and leave Great-West Life to forget reimbursing us for legit expenses, their tactic is to bully our health professionals and question the service we have been provided with.

The insurance company sucks so much. They make it so difficult for you to get money back for a claim. It's like they don't want you to get paid. You have to jump through so many hoops including talking to so many people (if you can get ahold of them), mailing forms/receipts and waiting many days.

They sent me a letter in the mail saying they need additional information for my claim. There was no address and they didn't indicate how I was to provide the information. I then called them and they said they would send me an email with the information. It's been 5 days yet no email!!! How does this company stay in business?

I have this insurance company with my employer and good grief does it ever suck. I had Greenshield with my last employer. For the last few years, Greenshield billed the pharmacy directly without making the employer pay extra. If having to submit your receipts for drugs is not annoying enough, you have to do it by mail. What a craptacular company. Their website works, apart from GroupNet. Every time you go to their website, you get the following message. I have been trying since Friday night and still see the same message. Need I say more. Site Temporarily Unavailable. We are sorry this site is only available. We are working to restore service as quickly as possible. We apologize for the inconvenience and thank you for your patience. Return to Great-West Life website: Click here to return to the Great-West home page. This is the worst insurance company in all of Canada! I cannot believe I have to send prescription receipts again through Canada Post to get reimbursed (80%). They mail you the cheque and explanation entirely in French on top of that, no English anywhere. If you don't parler Francais, you will not understand most of it. The form I submitted was in English as were the receipts for meds prescribed by a doctor in Ontario. I have no idea what the letter says and short sentences in Eng are long in Fr. I would have to type it in Google translate, as they do not use email. I know this is a bilingual country, but do they seriously expect everyone to know French. Moreover, they don't even cover the prescription strength (a strength not available OTC), generic allergy medication, the same one Greenshield covered. Maybe that is why their explanation of my benefits for the receipts was in French? So unimpressed.

The worst company I have ever dealt with. They take your money, but try to make a claim. Lying cheating thieves!!!