Website - http://www.johnhancock.com
Located – Boston, MA
Phone – 1-800-387-2747
Employees – 22,000
Revenue (bil.) – $34.2
Description - For insurance, all you have to do is sign on the dotted line. John Hancock Financial Services offers insurance, investment products, investment management, and other services. Its insurance products include variable, universal, and term life. John Hancock also provides retirement savings products — annuities, mutual funds, 401(k), and long-term care insurance. One of the US’s largest investors, John Hancock offers institutional asset management services, providing clients with specialty funds in such industries as timber and agriculture. It has about $175 billion under management. John Hancock is owned by Canada’s Manulife.

Source: http://www.hoovers.com

Reviews & Ratings

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imfun4lovin’s Full Review of John Hancock Life Insurance

Consider buying this if you are over 50, even if not from Hancock. My experience was good, policy was issued quickly, the few times I’ve needed to call it went smoothly. So far, no reason to be unhappy. Rates competitive, good reputation, and that’s about all I can say, but I guess I must say more as this is requiring more words. Well, I like them and would recommend them. You have to find an agent that sells for them, but I am sure you can find one in your yellow pages. I used USAA, but that’s for another epinion (they rock!)

Bankrott’s Full Review of John Hancock Life Insurance

Since last week, John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance Company insures my life, and already I am not happy. Based on my application for a Term Life Policy through “MarketPlace by John Hancock” (web- or telephone based insurance applications only), here is why:

After searching the Web for a few months, I chose John Hancock Mutual Life as the underwriter for my new Term Life Insurance Policy. Major influences on the decision were competitive pricing combined with the policy features (20-year term, level premium, and convertible to whole life), as well as the financial health of the company. Major insurance rating agencies such as A.M. Best Company, Moody’s Investor Service, Standard & Poor’s Corporation and Duff & Phelps have bestowed their top ratings on John Hancock.

Applying via the MarketPlace website is supposed to guarantee you the lowest rates available. I had a customer service representative confirm this by quoting me the same policy, as if it was received as a telephone application, and the price was about 40% higher (super-preferred rate).

The online application process takes about 15 to 20 minutes and involves 9 different screens. Required input covers personal and financial information, a not too extensive health questionnaire, beneficiary designation, and other information that is used by the underwriter to assign you to an appropriate risk category. At the end of the web interview you receive a quote and are asked to provide billing information. You can choose between an annual or monthly payment (for cash management reasons I prefer to pay monthly, instead of giving them up-front use of my money) and select a payment method such as Credit Card, EFT, or a plain old invoice. Paying by Credit Card will currently reduce your first year premium by 5%.

I completed the web application on 01/26/2000. Within a couple of days I received a phone call from John Hancock and had to go through a phone interview, which lasted about 15 minutes. Some questions appeared to be duplicates of the online application, most of them though covered my medical health in more detail as well as a lot of info about my parents health. Then the interviewing representative scheduled me for a physical exam, to be conducted at our house.

The physical exam was conducted by a third party medical service. The girl was polite, and asked me the same questions that I had already answered through either the phone or the web. I assume that the company is trying to catch fraudulent applications by asking the same questions over, and over again looking for a discrepancy in the answers given. The exam itself was a blood and urine test, and to the best of my memory, my height and weight were jotted down on the paperwork based on my replies. When the young lady left, I thought the application process was over.

A few days later I received another call from a John Hancock representative, asking when I could meet him for an interview. Wait a minute! I already had the web interview, the phone interview, the physical exam and an interview! Well, they just had to ask me a few more medical questions… All right! I agreed to a meeting within a couple of days.

The gentlemen, who visited me, did not work for John Hancock directly as it turned out, but for another third party service hired to compile and verify my medical records. I was asked to provide names and addresses for any doctor I had used within the last ten years. After four kids my memory is practically zero so the process must have been frustratingly slow for the rep. I ended up going through my Quicken file, just to remember what the name of such and such doctor or practice was, but, hey, I got it together…

This was the last interview and it took place during the latter part of February. After that, I did not hear anything else from John Hancock for a month. Then a letter informed me that they were still waiting for information from one of my recent physicians and I could help speed up the process by contacting my physician to send the requested medical records.

I never got to make that call, because on April 20th (three months after the initial application) I received a call from the underwriting department of John Hancock. Finally the good news that I have been approved! But, alas, my weight was outside of the range required for the super-preferred rate, so my premiums would be based on the standard rate! That rate however is $400 per year higher than the rate I was quoted during the web application. Since I was taken by surprise, I asked a few more questions about the weight limitations for the policy premiums. Well, why didn’t anyone tell me that immediately after the physical? (Rhetorical question! It’s bad for premium revenues, I know!) After hearing that on the two-year anniversary of the policy I could request reconsideration of the premium upon providing only a doctor’s note with a height and weight measurement, I agreed to take the policy. I requested that they send a letter confirming that ONLY my weight (both my parents have heart problems, which is really why I expected a higher premium) played a roll in the premium classification, and that the policy would be eligible for reconsideration within two years. The rep agreed to do that.

Within a few minutes though I realized that the lady on the phone had completely ignored to give me the weight limitations for the class in between, the preferred rate. Smelling foul play, I called John Hancock again. A new representative offered me the weight limitations for all three classes: for the super-preferred and the standard rate they were 6 pounds higher than the amounts given to me by the previous rep! He assured me that his amounts were correct (As if I would trust anything coming from a John Hancock rep at this point…). He also offered some unsolicited, but welcomed advice on how to get the premiums reduced, considering that I was only 4 pounds away from the preferred rate, which would represent a $300 savings from the standard rate. Hence the title of this review!

So, what I have to do now, is lose 4 lbs., get a doctor to weigh me and measure my height. Write a letter “selling” myself as low risk (I don’t do drugs, smoke, or drink alcohol) to the underwriter, pointing out that I was not weighed during the physical exam, and fax the whole thing to John Hancock. All of the above within 30 days! I will certainly give it a try and update this review as needed. I will also take my guaranteed-to-be-satisfied 31 days to consider just canceling the policy and to reapply, once I lose my “baby fat”. By then, they will probably find a different reason to jack up the premiums…

Do I recommend John Hancock Mutual Life?

If you qualify for their best rate, I would. During the comparison shopping process, even my Farmer’s Insurance agent told me that I was getting a good deal with the John Hancock premiums. But I am still terribly upset about the fact that their computer quoted me a rate, which John Hancock’s guidelines say, I don’t qualify for. Is it a pure programming oversight, or could this be conceivably called a “bait-and-switch”? I’ll let you know, if I find out!

Source: http://www.epinions.com

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