Comments on Jason M. Hanley: Manulife CoverMe insurance isn't worth it

I agree with Jason, I have to wait for a password ...

2011-03-27T17:20:28.351-04:00

I agree with Jason, I have to wait for a password they MUST send to me by regular mail. They missed it the first time so I had to complaint on the phone and finally I had to wait like 2 weeks to get the password to be able to sign up online.
The customer service on the phone is according with the operator mood/patient of these day.
The website design is ok, but the information is absolutely difficult to understand, never clear how much are you cover, very confusing with a lot of information that if you are not a trained Manulife operator you will never understand.

VIRGINIA, Burlington, Ontario

Well, that's true enough - but that's also...

2010-04-13T10:25:27.149-04:00

Well, that's true enough - but that's also true of pretty much all the insurance companies in Canada. It's astounding how far back they are in terms of the internet and electronic front ends. I'm not sure I'd single out Manulife for poor electronic interaction.They're part of the crowd in that respect.

I had a client laugh at me on the phone one day. He said he had this picture in his head that I had a pen and was filling out his application by hand....funny, except that's exactly what I was doing. On the life insurance side, most companies I'm familiar with have at best pdf's for their applications (some don't even have that, you have to keep paper copies). And one company - one - has fillable pdfs.

Another health and dental company, when I fill out their 'online' form has someone at head office print out the application, then manually enters it into their internal system. Bizarre, but true :).

In short, pretty much all the insurance companies in Canada that I'm familiar with have an abysmal track record on electronic stuff. They're suspicious of the internet and are probably about 10 years behind what you'd expect. Not even close to what you'd see from a bank. Manulife's right there with the rest of the insurers :).

All of my dental and drug claims were electronic, ...

2010-03-16T18:44:16.560-04:00

All of my dental and drug claims were electronic, but travel and eyewear claims both required paper forms.

Furthermore, there was no way to view any sort of claims history on their website.

As far as I'm concerned, they still have a ways to go to move into the electronic age.

I suspect that your experience was the result of s...

2010-03-15T12:17:07.896-04:00

I suspect that your experience was the result of something odd about your claim. Here's what I got from Manulife directly (I'm a broker):

" Over 90% of all drug claims are electronic. Over 75% of all dental claims are electronic.
Paper submit claims take about 6 business days. "

Exceptions (where they need to review the claim) can mean paper submission.

As a small business owner, I would suggest you make sure of two things. First, ensure you're submitting your premiums to your accountant :). Secondly, if you have coverme, make sure you have their catastrophic coverage.

In fact, even if you don't have health and dental insurance, you should consider their catastrophic coverage as a stand alone plan. It covers no drug costs below $4500, and ALL drug costs above $4500.

Almost all drug plans - including the coverage many people have at work - have a cap. Go ahead, check it out. You'll find a maximum cap on your drug coverage, commonly $2000-$4000. It varies, but the cap is almost certainly there.

Discovering there's a cap by exceeding your drug maximums on your current plan is the wrong time to find out - so go check your policy now.

(I'll have more details on the catastrophic coverage on my website www.cccd.ca in the next month).