Compare Health Insurance Plans
Comparing health and dental insurance plans can be overwhelming. As brokers, we’ve compared many of the common health plans and determined that Manulife’s Flexcare (CoverMe) is the best, offering competitive prices and benefits. However there are two factors that combined, are not available on any other health and dental plan in Canada – and for that reason alone we recommend Manulife’s health and dental products. Those two features are:
- Guaranteed renewability. Prices may only increase by class, not by individual insureds (i.e. they can’t raise just your premiums alone),
- Unlimited drug costs (by including the ‘catastrophic option, which we recommend on all policies). To our knowledge, all other drug plans in Canada – including group coverages you may have at work – have a cap on drug costs. Exceed that cap, and you’ll find yourself without coverage for the excess drug costs. Manulife’s Catastrophic option provides unlimited drug coverage.
We’ve put together 4 of the more commonly known health and dental insurance plans in Canada with an outline comparison.
| Benefit | Manulife FlexCare ComboPlus Enhanced(incl. Catastrophic) |
SunLife | Blue Cross (Ontario> |
Great West Life |
| Prescription Drugs | 80% on first $2220. 100% after that. |
70% on first $7000 100% to max.100,000 |
80% to max. $10,000. |
90% to max. $10,000 |
| Paramed Practitioners e.g. Chiropractors, physiotherapists, massage therapists, and some other practitioners. |
$20/visit, max 20 visits, $250 combined max. | $400 max. | $20/visit, max. 25 visits per year. | 90% to max $500 per year. |
| Hospital Room | Semi-private, 100% first 30 days, 50% next 100 days. | Semi-private, 85% coinsurance, max $5000. | Private, max 90 days. |
Semi-private, max. 60 days. |
| Vision/eye exams | $150/2years + $30/2years exams. | $200/2 years + $50/2 years exams. | $150/2 years. | $200/2 years + $50/2 years exams |
| Hearing aids | $400/4 years. | $500/5 years. | ||
| Dental | 100% on first $500 basic, 60% on next $700. 60% to 3 yr max on surgery, perio & endodontics. Orthodontics, crowns and dentures, 60% starting year 3 |
80% to max $750, Restorative, 50% to max. $500 starting year 2. Orthodontics 60% to lifetime max $1500 starting year 3. | 70% basic services to max. $750. 75% basic year 2 to max $1000. Yr. 3, 80% basic with $1250 max, 3 yr. max inlcudes 50% major restorative max. of $500. | 80% routine services, max $750 with $25 deductible. 60% endodontics, periodontics and oral surgery. 50% major services to max $500. |
| Premium: M 40, F 40, children 9 & 10 |
$443.00 | $462.86 | $428.45 | $410.86 |
Important note: the above is a summary only and does not provide a complete breakdown of all benefits available for all of these plans.
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