Manulife Vitality – Everything You Need To Know

Simon Huften

Simon Huften is the President of Life Insurance Canada.com Inc.

Have you heard about Manulife’s Vitality Life Insurance Program and are seeking the fine details? Everything you need to know about the product is here.

What is Manulife Vitality?

Manulife Vitality is a very unique product offered by Manulife Insurance (also known as Manufacturers Life Insurance Company) which you can add to the following life insurance products,

• 10 Year Term Life Insurance (renewable until age 80)
• 20 Year Term Life Insurance (renewable until age 80)
• Term to Age 65 Life Insurance
• Term to Age 100 Life Insurance

Manulife Vitality combines a term life insurance product with the opportunity for clients to earn rewards and save on their monthly premiums, all while improving their overall health.

The option to add Vitality to your Manulife life insurance policy costs an extra $2.00 per month and is currently available on coverage amounts of $500,000 to $20,000,000.

It also provides the option to convert your term life insurance policy to a permanent Manulife life insurance product. This is a standard feature which most term life insurance policies offer and is available with Manulife Vitality.

So, How Does It Work?

You submit an application for term life insurance (product options are listed above) with Manulife and add the option for Manulife Vitality to the policy. Once the policy is approved and you have accepted your policy, you are given the option to sign up online with Vitality to create your account.

Once you have signed up, you are able to choose a smart watch that is used to track your physical activity. You can choose a Garmin vivofit 4 for free or upgrade to an Apple Watch (starting at $0 and the price increases depending on what Apple Watch you choose). The watch will track your physical activity and provide you with Vitality Points which are used for your Vitality Rewards.  

Watch the video Introducing Manulife Vitality

What Vitality Isn’t

Manulife Vitality does not impact the underlying life insurance or the conditions for the coverage. If you purchase $1,000,000 of life insurance from Manulife, add the Vitality option and then subsequently pass away, the $1,000,000 of benefit is paid the same whether or not you had the Vitality option on your policy.

In other words, there is no detriment to your life insurance coverage by purchasing the Vitality option.

Manulife Vitality Premiums

Subscribers to the Vitality program have the ability of receiving discounted life insurance premiums. As a very rough estimate, if you would expect to receive standard / regular premiums on your life insurance, you can potentially reduce your premiums to a preferred status (lower monthly premiums compared to a regular policy).

This decrease in premiums is within your control as it is calculated based on the amount of physical activity that you do on a monthly basis.

Manulife Vitality is geared towards active individuals who want to be rewarded for maintaining good health and exercise with lower life insurance premiums as well as additional rewards offered by Vitality.

How Manulife Vitality Premiums Work

Manulife has a series of multipliers (denoted by various precious metals classified as Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum) which are used to determine the premium of your life insurance policy. You earn each multiplier by completing predefined tasks (summary of tasks is below).

As an example, let’s say that the multiplier for Silver is 0.95. Each task that you complete has predefined points and you qualify for each multiplier by completing these tasks. For example, Silver requires 3,500 points. If you complete enough tasks to accumulate 3,500 points in one year, your life insurance premium will be subject to the Silver multiplier. This means that your premiums will be multiplied by 0.95. In other words, you will be receiving about a 5% discount for the year.

The next status that you can achieve is Gold which requires 7,000 points and then Platinum which requires 10,000 points. By reaching and maintaining the Platinum status, you will receive substantially reduced life insurance premiums and can maintain those lower premiums for the duration of your term life insurance policy. Doing so would put you at the lower limit for your life insurance premiums. The more points, the more you will save on your life insurance premiums.

So, what happens if you later decide to do nothing and you do not participate in the Vitality program? Manulife will over time apply a multiplier that will bring your premiums back in line to where they should be. This would bring you back to Bronze status which does not provide any discount on your premiums. This would put you at the upper limit of your life insurance premiums.

The good news is that if you do nothing at all, the total premiums you would have paid over the term of your policy would be the same as if you had not participated in the program. This means that the worst-case scenario is the same as do nothing. The upside is that if you do in fact participate, you are in control of reducing your premiums up to Manulife’s lower limit (Platinum status).

You will automatically receive the discounted ‘Gold’ level premiums in your first year since you haven’t had any time to accumulate points. Subsequent years are based on tracking of your points from the prior year.

Here is a quick summary of the different levels that you can achieve depending on the points you have accumulated.

• Bronze – 0 Points
• Silver – 3,500 Points
• Gold – 7,000 Points
• Platinum – 10,000 Points

Summary of Manulife Vitality Premium Structure

In the first year of Manulife Vitality, you will automatically be given Gold level discounted life insurance premiums. You can then complete tasks to accumulate additional points.

If you earn enough points and qualify for a level higher than Bronze, your life insurance premiums will be discounted for the following year. Manulife does have a cap on how low your premiums can go as well as a cap on how high they can go. The cap on the higher premium is the equivalent to the premiums you would have paid if you had never participated in the program, over the course of the policy term. The cap on the lower premium is when you receive Platinum status and is dependent on your policy and premiums.

Manulife Vitality Rewards Program

In addition to the potential for cheaper life insurance premiums, Manulife Vitality offers a rewards program for those who participate. The amount of rewards available is increasing as time goes by. Some of the current rewards are:

Vitality Garmin Watch

You can receive a free Garmin vivofit 4 watch or upgrade to the latest technology from Garmin as part of joining the Vitality program. This free watch (or upgraded watch) can be used for your own purposes, but it can also be used to earn the points towards your discounted premiums. Use the Garmin Watch to track your fitness related activities, record is at the Vitality website and potentially earn lower life insurance premiums.

Apple Watch

You can also receive a Apple Watch from just $0.00 (plus applicable taxes and fees if you want to upgrade the Watch) and fund the balance of the watch by tracking daily activity and earning Vitality Points.

Basically, if you decide to opt for the Apple Watch and use it to earn enough Vitality Points, Manulife Vitality will waive the monthly payments for the watch so it does not cost you anything to have the Apple Watch.

Hotels.com

You can also receive a Apple Watch from just $0.00 (plus applicable taxes and fees if you want to upgrade the Watch) and fund the balance of the watch by tracking daily activity and earning Vitality Points.

You can earn up to 50% off a hotel stay for any two nights at qualifying hotels, each program year. There are currently over 400,000 hotels available worldwide that participate in the Vitality program with Hotels.com.

Whether booking nights separately or both at the same time, you can use your Vitality discount to reduce the cost of your stay. The discount is dependent on your Vitality Rewards Status

• Bronze – 0% Discount
• Silver – 15% Discount
• Gold – 25% Discount
• Platinum – 50% Discount

Amazon

You can be rewarded with Amazon Gift Cards by playing the monthly Vitality Squares game or through a limited offer which is running from January 16, 2019 to December 31, 2020. Every time you qualify for a higher Vitality Status, you will receive the following,

• Achieve Silver Status – $15.00 Amazon Gift Card
• Achieve Gold Status – $25.00 Amazon Gift Card
• Achieve Platinum Status – $50.00 Amazon Gift Card

GoodLife Fitness

By being a Manulife Vitality member you have access to an exclusive discount with GoodLife Fitness. You can get 55% off of a one-year membership at either GoodLife Fitness or Energie Cardio fitness clubs.

ExamOne

Manulife Vitality members are eligible for an annual health assessment through ExamOne at no cost. The assessment can be done wherever you choose- at your home, office or other location that is suitable. You even earn rewards for being proactive and checking in on your health.

Manulife Vitality Points System

There are four levels of premiums with the associated point requirements which are,

• Bronze – 0 Points
• Silver – 3,500 Points
• Gold – 7,000 Points
• Platinum – 10,000 Points

Here’s a summary of the types of activities that garner points,

What’s In It For Manulife?

It turns out that participating in this program isn’t just a marketing hype. Manulife has done extensive research and has concluded that active monitoring and participation in your health regime can have substantial longevity benefits.

Simply by participating and monitoring means fewer death claims. Even for consumers who may be subject to some medical ratings can transition themselves to a non-rated level of mortality simply by being proactive.

The benefits are easy to see. If you know you are at risk of developing a cancer, aggressively monitoring its detection and putting in effort to mitigate that risk can clearly help minimize the potential future impact of developing that cancer.

So, while this may seem like a marketing twist – and it certainly is a good one – it’s also a way for you to control and be proactive with your longevity in a very concrete fashion.

Manulife Vitality Sample Quotes

To help give you an idea of the cost of Manulife Vitality life insurance, we have prepared a couple sample policy quote illustrations that you can review. These are the formal illustrations that we would review with a customer who is interested in a quote for Manulife Vitality. If you would like a custom quote for yourself, please contact us to discuss your options further.

• $500,000 – 20 Year Term Life Insurance – Male – Age 35 – Healthy Non Smoker
• $500,000 – 20 Year Term Life Insurance – Female – Age 35 – Healthy Non Smoker

Summary

That’s a pretty good overview of the finer details of Manulife Vitality. If you are somewhat active and are looking to purchase a term life insurance policy for $500,000 of coverage or more, we definitely recommend looking at Manulife Vitality as a consideration for your term life insurance needs. You can also find a full review of the Manulife Insurance Company here.

We are able to provide you with quotes for Manulife Vitality term life insurance. All you need to do is contact us to discuss your options with one of our awesome life insurance advisors!