Sun Life Financial Canada Reviews 385

I came here feeling bad about leaving a negative review and it appears I am not the only one...

I have never before experienced anything like this.

We were approached by a friend, who started working with them. We were already looking to get additional insurance on top of work, so we were interested.

Through the process, we somehow didn't qualify for all the bonuses we were promised. We were misinformed at every step of the way and never really knew what was going on or was going to happen next.

The application process was ridiculous, with them clearly using this to get a bunch of info on us for financial planning services.

They managed to drop the ball on every piece of communication they had to do with my healthcare providers, nevertheless backing the results of my application on the information they failed to obtain.

This was a huge waste of my time. Definitely going somewhere else with my money next time.

Outdated, confused and completely incompetent.

Never go to this company. I put $2500 in 2018 in spousal RRSP. When I transfer today it was only $1366. Very expensive fees. And poor management. Transfer fee.
$354???? Very expensive!

I applied applied for health insurance with Sunlife: the experience was awful, our application was tedious, lengthy, invasive and the process confusing. The agents are confused themselves - unaware what goes on after they complete the paperwork. The end result would have been a very expensive insurance covering none of our needs, altogether a waste of money and time. I have withdrawn the application at the second wave of forms and paperwork was thrown at us - covering information we have already provided. It was just an endless hassle. We opted for for insurance from a competitor and the whole process took 1 hr versus 3 weeks...

I have had an ongoing claim on my Father's life insurance for nearly 5 months. They constantly want different documents or in a different format or different wording.
My Mother died 3 months after my Father and had an identical insurance claim and that was paid out within 3 weeks of her Death.
I have still not had any payout for my Fathers life insurance policy.
Huge inconsistency with requirements and painfully slow!

We needed personal health insurance for 2 people. We got in touch with them, and the entire process took more than 4 months! Not only that, but they declined coverage for anxiety medication, ADHD medication, mental health coverage (i.e. psychologists, social workers, therapists etc.).

So... They'd want us to pay up to $234 per month?! For what??? Dental, optometry and paramedical? Realistically, we could only go there 6 times in a single YEAR to a chiro, for example:

"Paramedical (like massage therapists and speech pathologists): 100% up to $400 per practitioner"

As for dental AND optometry, the cost incurred is around what, $375 per year when and if we go(?). Wait... Get this, the coverage would NOT even start for a WHOLE year and then every 2 years:

"Vision — Every 2 years
100% up to $300 (starts after 1 year)"

As for dental, it wouldn't start before 3 months.

As for the part about medication, EVEN if they had to pay for medication, they would NOT be paying a lot whatsoever, seeing the government here pays A LOT of it. The idea that they pinch pennies for something they wouldn't even pay much for is so baffling.

Not only is it highway robbery, but it's the WORST insurance company I have EVER had to deal with. When you place capitalism on such a high pedestal, companies are always trying to save face when there is public backlash. Unfortunately for them, with a rating of 1.2 stars here, they CLEARLY don't care. Unfortunately for them, they're missing out on A LOT of money here.

The process itself was us communicating with a rep, and then she had some questions (i.e. basic forms for us to fill in). Which is fine, whatever.

However! Subsequently, a bunch of random people we didn't speak with, which the rep referred to as "they", sent more questions over to us through her. If this wasn't enough, three quarters of the questions were the EXACT same questions.

Now, fast forward until the very last day: The rep calls me (I was asleep when I picked up), asking us to send a reply that day. She told me she was going on vacation after today and needed us to reply to the email. Alright, fine. Once I got up, I read the email which stated that they wanted us to give them an answer on that SAME day, otherwise we'd have to start over from scratch. I don't understand their logic, which is not only completely ridiculous, but also asinine! And sure... That's gonna be easy, especially when the rep was going on vacation. 🙄

All of that said, we were NOT interested in getting coverage with Sunlife. I replied to the rep, stating the entire process was completely ridiculous. Especially due to the fact that they literally expected us to fork over money with clearly ZERO benefits. What's the point of advertising something extremely beneficial that we'd use more than anything, but tell us, 'no, you can't get this coverage', despite the fact that they would STILL make money:

"Psychologists / Social workers: 100% up to $1,500".

The above here would be around half of what we'd pay a month.

Personally, I believe that they have the worst type of customer support (or whatever you wanna call it), where the person you are talking to has ZERO say and is merely a secretary passing down information to both sides. I have no problem with that person whatsoever, what I do have a problem with is not talking directly to THE person making decisions that impact the final outcome. AND the fact that THEY wanted a decision on the same day the email was sent? Respect and Logic: 0%.

I hate HATE Sunlife as a business, because they intentionally design their software to make the claims submission process so difficult and awful from a user experience perspective.

The website maintenance is down nightly so I HAVE NEVER BEEN ABLE TO SUBMIT A CLAIM through the portal, in 3 months!!!

It's now my second employer that is using them, which means I've been a customer for 4 years now. In the last 30 days, I've tried to submit a claim 4 times - and all 4 times THE PORTAL HAS BEEN DOWN FOR MAINTENANCE.

Horrible insurance company. Outdated, old school, works against employees.

Where other providers like Manulife approve Estimates within 24 hours, Sunlife requires 7 BUSINESS days! And then, if they require more information, they require another 7 business days!
For some medications and equipment, this could result in health issues or something significantly more serious, even death.
HORRID Customer Service - HORRID response time, and ridiculous requirements not needed with other providers. Plus, you cannot get to a higher level when things are dire!
They will also not approve required prescription medications for over 30 days at a time, when they are required every day of the year - all other providers offer 90 days at a time without any problems.

test testing testing

Terrible service experience. Wife passed away in Jan-2023, I am beneficiary of RRSP - everything filled out properly for payout of claim. It has been months and months of no action, excuses and fake promises. Its always the same message, its with the back office being processed. No information or updates. No escalation path, just a bunch of sorry, sorry, sorry. I have never experienced such incompetence and to think this is supposed to be a highly regulated financial institution....shame on you guys. You should be very embarrassed.

my workplace uses this crappy company for benefits. i submit a claim and expect the 20% payout (per the plan) and they reimburse me with a 1% payout. i contact them and they basically say "tough luck"
i wish there was a way to make these cheating lying companies pay

The security check with Sunlife really sucks. I left my company and would like to transfer my accounts to my bank for better management. When I called them, interestingly I passed the security check, talked with the advisor for 30 mins then they transfer me to helpdesk and they failed me for security question !!!. I called one more time, passed. Another time, failed...Looks like their system do not record the answer properly or some thing. The helpdesk (named Chris AZ 84) even commented bluntly " How come you forgot your personal answers?"

It is a waste of time dealing with them and it is so annoying.

They took over a pension company that I'd been with for years with no problems. They under-performed consistently with others in the market but I left it where it was because it was 'the safest fund' that they had. So then we have the Truss disaster and the fund starts to drop like a stone. Do they inform me? No! I don't find out until my next statement for a fund that they're managing and taking a commission for. I complain to the financial ombudsman after conversations/letters with SLOC and he sides with them! This episode cost me £40,000 and I was offered £100. Zero stars is not an option....

Every time I claimed something that is 100% coverage no deductible, it would not be 100%. They always said "You were reimbursed the maximum amount allowed based on reasonable and customary charges for this expense." How on earth I would know what the doctor charge me for, not like I can negotiate the cost with doctor. Then they would suggest to search for providers from their website for competitive cost to reduce the out of pocket amount (Why do I have 100% coverage and have to pay a portion of it myself?) But the provider search result is a wide ranges of cost, unless I go with the cheapest, they probably not reimburse the full amount. On top of that, some service they require doctor referral. I have to know what service I need ahead seeing my doctor then do the provider search and ask my doctor for referral to specific clinic/doctor. Why don't I just become doctor myself and treat myself and not having health insurance.
Stay away from Sunlife health insurance. Their reimbursement is ridiculous.

One star! Impressive! I could select zero or I would have. Denied my brother’s death disability benefits. Sent in paperwork 6 times but he kept getting emails reminding him to submit. Disability recognized by State of Wisconsin but these Canadian wonks did not. Goodbye death benefits. CRIMINALS

Sunlife never reflected my sign-in ID change to my personal email, instead persisting with a work email I no longer have access to from 8 years ago. This led to a very confusing evening of futile password resets on my own and another confusing conversation with an agent who also couldn't figure it out.

The UI on the site is also ridiculous. Why is "upload documentation" hidden as an option on the top nav bar but never shows up on the claims page? How come I can't easily see all my Sunlife information from all my previous ex-employers centralized on a single dashboard but somehow they expect me to keep using my work email from an ex-ex-employer as my sign in ID? Why didn't the claim I submitted at my last employer go through when I submitted it directly to a Sunlife email address using their forms? I've used Sunlife, Canadalife, and Manulife now and Sunlife has easily the worst processes.

This is a worst and useless benefit company that may be ever existing on the planet or may be universe. I have my investments with this company through my employer. This company's advisors are the worst in professional assistance. They cook up kid's stories like the one I heard today. They had an appointment at 5:30 pm today and no one turned up for meeting. At 5 pm they called and informed that they are on the way to the meeting. When I called them at 6:15, they said someone in the family died last night so they cannot come for meeting. Hmmm... wow !!! DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! This company may be scamming by holding our investments and not reachable. I would just term them scammers !!!

What a useless benefit company. My company pays them a lot expecting the employees to have health and dental coverage. In years of using them we have only had three major claims. They didn't cover the optomitry bill and wasted a lot of my time. They didn't cover my daughter's braces after I again wasted a lot of time trying to deal with them. Now my husband needs knee braces which they clearly state they cover in our policy and once again I'm wasting my time and not receiving coverage. DO NOT USE THIS COMPANY! I highly recommend Cost Efficient Benefits if you would like actual coverage for your employees.

Hiring all international students, worst customer service and constantly denying claims that should be approved. No one there knows what they are doing.

Along with premium , Sunlife premium also collects investment portion. They don't tell you how your investment is performing till an annual report is generated. If your investment is doing bad , there is no opportunity or scope of course correction in between. Only advisors are allowed to make a change. Sunlife doesnot let you know how many funds are available and what is their performance. Basically they collect your money and use it where ever they please and they only report through complicated one way advisor channel how your investment is doing. They get away with it because who is going to take on a big company like Sunlife. The advisor tries to pacify you by escalatingthe issue who repeats what the advisor already have told you. Their system cannot generate fund performance report on monthly basis so you can make investment correction on a monthly basis and not on yearly basis. Also their website does not show you how your investment is performing in the stock exchange. Someone with more resources than I have should report to GofC because it is illegal what Sunlife is doing.

Unprofessional attitude.
They paid me $425.81 by mistake, next day I have returned through online banking, it is now over a month but they deducted from my Health spending account, means it cost me double, one I paid back and one deduction from my account, many calls, chat nobody resolved till now. Call if you are reading reviews 343 573 8989