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Are you looking for a life insurance policy to motivate you to become more healthy and lead an active life?
How about one that rewards you with lower premiums and prizes like a free Apple Watch?
Now you can with Manulife Vitality.
In this post, I’ll explain to you what Manulife Vitality is and how it works.
You’ll also learn if it’s the right kind of insurance for you to protect your family and achieve your health goals.
Let’s get started.
What Is Manulife Vitality?
The two ways to get Manulife Vitality is term life insurance and universal life insurance. For term, you buy a fixed amount of coverage for a guaranteed level cost during the term. You can choose between a term of 10 years, 20 years, to age 65, or to age 100.
For example, if you chose a term-10 policy, your premiums are guaranteed for the first 10 years. After that, the premiums increase from years 11-20, and so on.
You can also convert the term policy into permanent coverage when your needs change without providing any medical evidence.
Universal life insurance is a type of permanent life insurance, meaning coverage lasts for life. Deposits above the minimum required premium are invested tax-sheltered in an account of your choice offered by Manulife. Upon death, the insurance payout includes your death benefit plus the account value, both paid out tax-free.
Below is a table showing more differences between term and universal life insurance with Manulife.
Term life insurance | Universal life insurance | |
|---|---|---|
Coverage options | Term-10, term-20, term-65, term-life (to age 100) | Yearly increasing cost to age 85 or for 20 years, level cost to age 100 |
Issue age limit | Term-10: 18-70.
Term-20: 18-60.
Term-65: 18-45.
Term-life: 60-85. | Yearly increasing to age 85 or for 20 years: 18-80. Level cost to age 100: 30-85. |
Minimum amount of insurance | $250,000 | $100,000 |
Preferred rates | Yes, for healthier individuals | No |
Policy fee | $57 annually or $5.10 monthly | None |
Convertability | Can convert to permanent life insurance | No, although you can change from yearly increasing to level cost |
Investment accounts | Not available | Choose from daily interest accounts, guaranteed investment accounts, indexed accounts, and managed accounts |
A fresh take on insurance
What sets Manulife Vitality apart from other life insurance policies is the ability to earn points for making healthy choices like exercising.
With these points, you can save on your insurance premiums and earn rewards. Rewards like a free Apple Watch, savings on GoodLife Fitness gym membership and HelloFresh, Amazon.ca gift cards, and more.
What does Manulife gain from this?
Simply put, healthier people means fewer insurance claims, leading to larger profits for shareholders.
It’s an innovative product designed to engage people to become more intentional about living a healthy lifestyle.
How Does Manulife Vitality Work?
Choose a program
When you sign up for Manulife Vitality, you can choose from Vitality Plus or Vitality Go. With Vitality plus, you pay a $6/month Vitality premium on top of your insurance premium to join the program, while Vitality Go is free.
Vitality Plus unlocks hundreds of dollars in savings from many popular brands. You can also save on your insurance premiums. On the other hand, Vitality Go offers lower discounts from fewer brands. Also, it doesn’t provide insurance premium savings.
Premium savings
When you sign up for Vitality Plus, you get a 10% discount in the first year. This is the Gold Vitality Status premium where everybody starts in year 1. The other Vitality Status are Bronze, Silver, and Platinum.
At renewal, your Vitality Status determines the premium you pay. For example, your premium will increase if your status is Bronze or Silver but decrease if it’s Platinum.
Here’s what it looks like if you maintain the same Vitality Status over 20 years.
The chart shows the monthly cost for a 40-year-old male non-smoker buying $500,000 of term-20 Manulife Vitality life insurance. You can also see the cost of a normal term-20 policy without Vitality for comparison.
As you can see, your Vitality Status dictates the premium you pay. Platinum saves you 15%, Gold 10%, Silver 2%, and no savings for Bronze.
Great, but how do you determine your Vitality Status?
It’s based on the number of points you accumulated throughout the year through activities like exercising and health reviews.
Below are the number of points you need each year to reach the different Vitality statuses.
- Bronze - 0 points
- Silver - 3,500 points
- Gold - 7,000 points
- Platinum - 10,000 points
Your Vitality status resets to Bronze every year so you’ll have to earn your way back up.
You get points for things like a health checkup, getting a flu shot, and being a non-smoker. You also earn points by being active, burning calories, increasing your heart rate, and walking. Later in the post is a complete list of point-earning activities.
So how do you track your activities?
That’s where the second major feature of Manulife Vitality, the rewards, comes in.
Manulife Vitality rewards (how to get a free Apple Watch)
When you sign up for Manulife Vitality Plus, you get a wearable device for free (Vitality Go members get a discount on a wearable device). It lets you track your steps, heart rate, and calories burned to assign you the number of points earned for an activity.
For example, a 10,000 steps per day earns you 20 points while a 15,000 steps per day earns you 30 points.
Just connect your wearable device to the Manulife Vitality app to start tracking your activities.
Vitality Plus members can choose between a Garmin or Fitbit wearable or Apple Watch. The free Garmin model is the Vivofit 4 but you can also choose other models for a 30% discount. Similarly, you can get 40% off select Fitbit models.
Likewise, the free Apple Watch is the Apple Watch SE, but you can choose the Apple Watch Series 8 for $97 or the Apple Watch Ultra for $667.
For the next 24 months, you may have a monthly payment that varies depending on the number of points you earn during the month. If you earn 500 points in the month, your payments drop to $0. That means if you earn 500 points per month for 24 months, the Apple Watch SE is yours for free!
For your reference, the Apple Watch SE retails for $329, the Series 8 retails for $529, and the Apple Watch Ultra retails for $1,099.
Other rewards
Besides the Apple Watch, there are some other pretty cool rewards from participating retailers. The more points you earn, the more the savings.
GoodLife Fitness: Get 25% off an individual one-year gym membership.
HelloFresh: Up to $148 in savings per year.
ExamOne: Get 1 free health check by a licensed health professional per year. Doing the health check can also earn you a lot of points so you should definitely take advantage of this offer.
Amazon: Get a one-year Prime membership for free.
Expedia: Save up to 50% on two bookings per year.
Plus, you can get gift cards from retailers like Amazon, Tim Hortons, Starbucks, Hudson’s Bay, Walmart, and Winners.
How to earn points
You can earn over 18,000 points annually—8,000 more than you need to hit Platinum. Here’s a full list of the things you can do to earn points.
Vitality Health Review (VHR) | Points | Maximum per year |
|---|---|---|
One time welcome bonus – complete VHR within 90 days | 1,500 | Once per lifetime |
Annual VHR | 500 | Once per year |
Complete VHR within 90 days of new year | 250 | Once per year after first year |
Annual health screening | Points | Maximum per year |
Body mass index (BMI) check | 125 | Once per year |
BMI of 18.5-24.9 | 1,000 | Once per year |
BMI of 25-28 | 500 | Once per year |
Glucose check | 125 | Once per year |
Fasting glucose < 5.6 mmol/L or HbA1c < 5.7% if you don't have diabetes or HbA1c > 7% if you have diabetes | 1,000 | Once per year |
Cholesterol check | 125 | Once per year |
Total cholesterol reading of < 5.2 mmol/L (an LDL reading of < 4.1 mmol/L may be acceptable in certain situations) | 1,000 | Once per year |
Blood pressure check | 125 | Once per year |
Reading of 120/80 or less | 1,000 | Once per year |
Non-tobacco user | 1,000 | Once per year |
Prevention | Points | Maximum per year |
COVID-19 vaccination | 400 | Once per year |
Annual flu shot | 200 | Once per year |
Pap smear screening | 200 | Once per year |
Mammogram screening | 200 | Once per year |
Colorectal screening | 200 | Once per year |
Dental screening | 200 | Once per year |
Prenatal care | 1,000 | Once per year |
Online education | Points | Maximum per year |
Interactive tools | 25 each | Four per year |
Mental well-being reviews | 50 each | Three per year |
Nutrition courses | 75 each | Six per year |
Goals check-in | 20 | Once per week. Maximum 1,040 points per year |
Certification | Points | Maximum per year |
First aid training | 100 | Once per year |
CPR training | 100 | Once per year |
Physical activity | Points | Maximum per year |
Physical activity review | 250 | Once per year |
Workouts | ||
Light workout | 10 | |
Standard workout | 20 | You can earn points for one workout per day (maximum 30). Maximum 6,000 points per year for workouts |
Advanced workout | 30 | |
Organized athletic events | ||
Level 1 | 250 | |
Level 2 | 350 | Maximum 1,500 points per year for organized athletic events |
Level 3 | 500 | |
Mindfulness | Points | Maximum per year |
Meditation (10+ minutes per day) | 10 | 500 |
Additional points | Points | Maximum per year |
Carry-over 10% of previous year’s points | Varies | N/A |
Here is what’s considered a light, standard, and advanced workout:
What are the differences between level 1, 2, and 3 organized athletic events?
Level 1:
- Run or walk 3 km – 9 km
- Cycle 10 km – 40 km
- Triathlon Super Sprint
Level 2:
- Run or walk 9 km – 20 km
- Cycle 40 km – 99 km
- Triathlon Sprint
Level 3:
- Run or walk over 20 km
- Cycle over 99 km
- Triathlon Olympic, ITU, Half or Full
As you can see, there is no shortage of ways to earn points. But wait, there are even more opportunities to get them.
Other ways to earn points
Vitality Wheel: Every week, you receive a goal in the Vitality app. You can reach that goal by earning points via standard and advanced workouts. When you reach your goal, you can spin the Vitality Wheel to win more points. You can also win gift cards by spinning the wheel!
Vitality Squares: Every month, you can flip tiles to earn points or gift cards in the Vitality Squares game in the app. The higher your Vitality status, the more tiles you can flip.
The easiest path to Platinum
10,000 points might seem like a lot to get to Platinum, but it’s really not too difficult to attain. Here is how you can reach Platinum status every year.
- Take advantage of the free annual health check from ExamOne. You can earn 4,500 points with good results (BMI, glucose, cholesterol, blood pressure).
- Be a non-tobacco user. Another easy 1,000 points.
- Do the Vitality Health Review within 90 days of the new year – 750 points.
- Do the online courses and goals check-in – 1740 points.
- Carry over 10% of the previous year’s points. Assume you had 10,000 last year, this gets you 1,000 points this year without lifting a finger.
- Add it up and you only have 1,000 points left to go to reach Platinum status. You can easily get there by doing standard and advanced workouts. You’ll want to be doing these anyway if you want the Apple Watch for absolutely free without any monthly payments.
Is Manulife Vitality right for you?
Manulife Vitality is an interesting product in an industry that’s often criticized for its slow pace of innovation.
It gets you more engaged in the program than a typical life insurance policy. With Vitality, you no longer buy life insurance and forget about it.
But that doesn’t mean that it’s for everybody. Here are some signs Manulife Vitality may or may not be right for you.
- Buy Manulife Vitality if:
- You want to be active to maintain and improve your health
- You want to set health goals and can use a bit of motivation to achieve them
- You want an affordable life insurance policy
- You want a free Apple Watch or Garmin wearable to track your activities
- You want to actively participate in the Vitality program to lower your premium and earn rewards
- You already use the retailers' services and want a discount
- Don't buy Manulife Vitality if:
- You don't want to actively manage your life insurance policy
- You don't have time or plan to be physically active
- You are already in excellent health and would qualify for preferred rates
- You aren't interested in the rewards
- You find it too complicated and as a result, don't want to engage with the program
How to sign up for Manulife Vitality
Like other types of life insurance, you have to buy Manulife Vitality through an insurance agent. Once you’ve submitted the application, you’ll go through underwriting. This is where Manulife assesses your health, medical history, and lifestyle to see if you’re a good fit for Vitality.
Once your application is approved, you will get a policy number. Head on over to the member site to register using your policy number and email address.
Next, do the Vitality Health Review and get your one-time 1,500 point as a welcome bonus.
Finally, download the Vitality app on the App Store or Google Play and start earning and tracking your points.
And that’s it! You’re well on your way to achieving your health goals!
Sample Manulife Vitality Quotes
Want to know how much Manulife Vitality costs? Check out the sample quotes below for an approximation. Shown are the monthly premiums for $500,000 of coverage.
Male non-smoker
| Product | Age 30 | Age 40 | Age 50 | Age 60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Term-10 | $22.35 | $26.99 | $61.62 | $192.87 |
| Term-20 | $28.85 | $43.35 | $115.19 | $382.01 |
| Term-65 | $53.74 | $73.18 | N/A | N/A |
| Term-100 | N/A | N/A | N/A | $915.37 |
Female non-smoker
| Product | Age 30 | Age 40 | Age 50 | Age 60 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Term-10 | $16.59 | $22.79 | $44.12 | $136.58 |
| Term-20 | $21.75 | $34.49 | $84.21 | $275.09 |
| Term-65 | $38.22 | $55.33 | N/A | N/A |
| Term-100 | N/A | N/A | N/A | $757.96 |
Want Your Personalized Manulife Vitality Quote?
Manulife Vitality is all about offering affordable life insurance to people who are more intentional about living a healthy lifestyle.
It’s a one-of-a-kind product in the industry. With the marketing push by Manulife, it’s looking to disrupt the marketplace.
It would be interesting to follow along and see if its success leads to more insurance companies coming out with similar products.
How about you? Do you think Manulife Vitality is right for you?
Let us know in the comments below.
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While we make every effort to keep our site updated, please be aware that timely information on this page, such as quote estimates, or pertinent details about companies, may only be accurate as of its last edit day. Brian So Insurance and its representatives do not give legal or tax advice. Please consult your own legal or tax adviser. This post is a brief summary for indicative purposes only. It does not include all terms, conditions, limitations, exclusions, and other provisions of the policies described, some of which may be material to the policy selection. Please refer to the actual policy documents for complete details which can be provided upon request. In case of any discrepancy, the language in the actual policy documents will prevail. A.M. Best financial strength ratings displayed are not a warranty of a company’s financial strength and ability to meet its obligations to policyholders.
2 Comments
Hi,I have a questions about Manulife Vitality. Can I and my husband buy this insurance if we hold the open-work permit?
Hi Ada, unfortunately, Manulife is not able to consider individuals applying for refugee status, foreign students on student visas, or people in Canada on a temporary work visa.