John Hancock Life Insurance Review 2020

Amid the COVID-19 pandemic, not all companies are accepting new life insurance applications. For the latest information on how to cope with financial stress during this emergency, see NerdWallet’s financial guide to COVID-19.

John Hancock is the U.S. division of Manulife Financial Corp., a global publicly traded financial services company based in Canada.

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John Hancock life insurance

John Hancock ranked No. 13 out of the 20 best life insurance companies as scored by NerdWallet. NerdWallet’s life insurance company rankings take into account financial strength, customer satisfaction and consumer complaints. NerdWallet scores the largest life insurance companies that sell policies to individuals in the U.S.

John Hancock’s Vitality program is available on all life insurance policies. It gives access to fitness and nutrition information through an app and website and rewards healthy activities with discounts.

Life insurance options include:

Term life. Terms of 10, 15 and 20 years are available, and many term life insurance policies can be converted to permanent coverage. You can get an estimated quote on the website for policies of $25,000 to $5 million if you provide contact information.

Permanent life. The company offers universal, indexed universal and variable universal life insurance. It also offers guaranteed-acceptance whole life insurance of up to $20,000 for funeral and other final expenses.

Coverage for people with diabetes. John Hancock’s Aspire program pairs a term or permanent life insurance policy with a diabetes management app and health coaching. In 2018, John Hancock says coverage was approved for two-thirds of applicants with Type 1 or Type 2 diabetes in addition to other related conditions.

Guaranteed-issue whole life. This coverage, offered to people ages 55 to 80, is designed for paying end-of-life expenses. Coverage amounts range from $2,000 to $20,000, and acceptance is guaranteed with no medical questions or exam. The full benefit isn’t paid out if the insured person dies within the first two years, unless the death results from an accident.

John Hancock complaints and customer satisfaction

John Hancock drew fewer than the expected number of complaints to state regulators for a company of its size, according to three years’ worth of data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners.

John Hancock scored among “the rest” (the lowest rating) for overall customer satisfaction in a 2019 J.D. Power U.S. life insurance survey. The insurer ranked No. 17 overall out of 24 companies included in the survey.

More about John Hancock

In addition to life insurance, John Hancock offers other financial products and services including:

• Annuities.
• College savings plans.
• Investment management, including socially responsible investment plans.
• Retirement advice.

Methodology: Insurer complaints

NerdWallet examined complaints received by state insurance regulators and reported to the National Association of Insurance Commissioners in 2016-2018. To assess how insurers compare to one another, the NAIC calculates a complaint index each year for each subsidiary, measuring its share of total complaints relative to its size, or share of total premiums in the industry. To evaluate a company’s complaint history, NerdWallet calculated a similar index for each insurer, weighted by market shares of each subsidiary, over the three-year period. Ratios are determined separately for auto, home and life insurance.