Product Note — Manulife
Manulife attaches a wellness program to most of its individual insurance — life and health & dental: points for walking, sleeping and check-ups set a yearly status, and on some products that status moves your premium. Here is the whole machine — including the parts the ads skip — from independent brokers who quote Manulife against 8+ other insurers.
BY WENTING HU — LICENSED LIFE INSURANCE AGENT (ON · BC · AB) · UPDATED AUGUST 18, 2026
Every eligible Manulife policy comes with Vitality Go automatically, for free. It earns partner discounts and gift cards, and it never changes your premium. The version people actually argue about is the paid one, Manulife Vitality Plus — built into three life products, and also available as a $5/month add-on to any Flexcare® or FollowMe™ health & dental plan. What it does depends on the product:
| Product | What Vitality Plus does to the price |
|---|---|
| Family Term with Vitality Plus | Premium savings up to 15%/yr — 10% automatic in year one (fee ≈$6/mo) |
| Manulife UL with Vitality Plus | Same — up to 15%/yr, 10% automatic in year one |
| Manulife Par with Vitality Plus | No discount — a non-guaranteed annual Vitality dividend instead |
| Flexcare / FollowMe health & dental + Vitality | Add to any plan for $5/mo: savings up to 10%/yr, 5% automatic in year one |
| Any eligible Manulife policy | Vitality Go, free — rewards and partner discounts only, premium untouched |
| Vitality Go | Vitality Plus | |
|---|---|---|
| Cost | $0 — included | Small monthly program fee (≈$6/mo) |
| Effect on your premium | None | Up to 15%/yr savings on Family Term & UL; a Vitality dividend on Par |
| Free wearable | Discounts only | Free Garmin or Fitbit, or an Apple Watch you can earn down to $0 |
| Health screenings | — | Free annual at-home screening (ExamOne); discounted Galleri® cancer test for eligible members |
| Partner discounts | Basic tier | Richer, and they climb with your status |
Program details from Manulife’s 2026 client materials; terms and rewards change over time and are not guaranteed.
You earn Vitality Points for things a reasonably healthy person may already do — over 18,000 points are available each program year across five buckets: physical activity (7,500), health checks (5,500), prevention such as dental visits and vaccinations (2,900), sleep and mindfulness (1,400), and reviews (650). Points set your Vitality Status. Points restart each program year — with a head start: 10% of last year's points roll over as a kick-start bonus. And the status you reach carries for the whole following program year, which is exactly the status your discount follows. A program you keep earning, not a one-time discount.
| Status | Points needed | Premium effect — Family Term & UL* |
|---|---|---|
| Bronze | 0 | 0% savings |
| Silver | 3,500 | 2% |
| Gold | 7,000 | 10% |
| Platinum | 10,000 | 15% |
*Savings versus the same Manulife policy without Vitality Plus. Year one is automatic: every Vitality Plus member saves 10% in the first program year, whatever their status. From year two, the discount follows the status you earned the previous year. Health & dental plans run their own scale: up to 10%, with 5% automatic in year one.
The honest arithmetic
The program fee is roughly $72/year. The automatic first-year 10% covers that fee whenever your annual premium is above about $720. From year two: hold Gold (10,000 steps most days plus your annual check-ups gets you close) and a $2,400/yr premium saves $240 against a $72 fee. Stay at Bronze and you pay the fee for rewards only — on premium, you’d have been better off with the plain policy. At bottom, Vitality is a nudge to keep healthy habits for the long run: a healthier, longer-lived client costs the insurer less — and the program hands part of that saving back to you.
This is the point most summaries get wrong: Manulife Par with Vitality Plus does not discount your premium. Instead, participation can add an annual Vitality dividend on top of the policy’s regular dividends — sized by your coverage amount, premium duration and the status you hold, and, like all dividends, not guaranteed. If you are comparing par illustrations, ask to see the policy with and without the Vitality dividend line — and remember the regular dividend scale does the heavy lifting either way.
Two layers here: perks every Plus member gets from day one, and a ladder that climbs with your status. The list, as of August 2026:
| Included with Vitality Plus — at any status | |
|---|---|
| Free fitness tracker | Garmin vívosmart® 5 or Fitbit Inspire 3 — free, outright |
| Apple Watch from $0 | SE 3 with $0 down; each monthly payment ($13.70 × 24) is waived every month you hit 500 workout points — roughly a brisk daily walk |
| Annual health screening | Free at-home biometric screening (ExamOne®) — every program year |
| Cancer early detection | 50% off the Galleri® multi-cancer blood test (life policies only; age 50+, $1M+ coverage, conditions apply) |
| Gyms & classes | GoodLife 25% off — extendable to 2 family members · Orangetheory: 3 weeks for $75 · Les Mills+ streaming 50% off |
| Devices & health tools | Garmin 30% off · Oura Ring 4 15% off · WHOOP $40 off · NiaHealth blood panels 15% off · Cronometer Gold 30% off |
| Weekly & monthly games | Hit your weekly target → spin the Vitality Wheel™ for points and gift cards; flip Vitality Squares™ monthly |
Then the ladder. Same effort that earns your premium discount also climbs these:
| Reward | Bronze | Silver | Gold | Platinum |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Expedia — one hotel booking/yr | 10% (max $100) | 15% ($150) | 25% ($250) | 50% — save up to $500 |
| adidas coupons | 15% ×4 | 20% ×12 | 25% ×12 | 30% ×12 |
| HelloFresh | — | $20 off | $45 off | Free meal kit (6 servings) |
| PKG Carry Goods | 15% | 25% | 35% | 45% |
| Vitality Squares/mo | — | 2 flips | 4 flips | 6 flips |
| Amazon | $99 gift card after three consecutive Platinum years — conveniently, about a year of Prime | |||
One hotel booking can pay for the whole year
Illustrative math: a healthy 30-something’s $500K Family Term with Vitality Plus can run around $300 a year all-in, program fee included. Hold Platinum and book one $1,000 family hotel stay through Expedia at 50% off — that single booking saves more than the entire year’s premium and fee. Even at Gold, 25% off one trip plus the free annual screening typically beats the ≈$72 fee several times over. Every reward on this page is subject to change and re-earned yearly — but that’s the scale of what participation buys.
Rewards as listed in Manulife’s program materials, August 2026. Partners, amounts and eligibility change over time and are not guaranteed over the life of the policy; premium example is illustrative — your quote depends on age, health and coverage.
Your step count cannot raise your rates
The program’s terms are explicit: activity data is never used to change your insurance risk or your coverage. Participation is optional. If you stop logging entirely, your policy is untouched — on Family Term and UL you simply drift to Bronze pricing at the next program year, and the rewards stop. The downside of quitting is losing a discount, never losing coverage.
It fits: people who already move — if you wear a watch and hit 8–10k steps, Gold is close to free money; families buying term who would do the annual dental and check-up visits anyway; par buyers who would participate regardless, for whom the Vitality dividend is pure upside.
Skip it: set-and-forget buyers — permanent Bronze means paying the fee with zero premium effect on Term and UL; anyone uncomfortable syncing health activity to an insurer’s app, even with the privacy protections above; and anyone for whom another carrier’s plain quote simply beats Manulife’s Vitality-adjusted price.
That last group is the important one. The right comparison is never “Vitality vs no Vitality.” It is Manulife-with-Vitality, at the status you will realistically hold, against the best plain quote across the 8+ insurers we work with. Sometimes Vitality wins. Sometimes a plain policy from another carrier is cheaper than Manulife at Platinum. We run both, side by side, and show you the numbers.
No. It is re-earned every year from the status you achieved the previous program year, and only Family Term and UL versions get premium savings at all. Year one’s 10% is the only automatic part.
No — program terms state activity data is never used to change insurance risk or coverage. The data decides discounts and rewards, nothing else.
Because par works differently: participation earns a potential annual Vitality dividend rather than a premium reduction. Ask for the illustration with and without it.
Your policy continues unchanged. On Term and UL you move toward Bronze pricing at the next program year; rewards and device perks stop. Nothing about your insurability or coverage is affected.
On the life side, Vitality Plus is built into specific products at purchase. Health & dental is friendlier: Vitality can be added to any Flexcare or FollowMe plan for $5/month. If you own a different life policy, talk to us before changing anything — replacing an in-force policy has real costs and needs a written comparison first.
Educational information, not advice; figures are from Manulife’s published 2026 program materials and current at the time of writing — program terms, rewards and pricing change over time and are not guaranteed. Vitality, Vitality Points, Vitality Status, Vitality Go and Vitality Plus are trademarks of Vitality Group International, Inc., used by The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company under licence; Manulife is a trademark of The Manufacturers Life Insurance Company. Wealthi is an independent content brand and this note is not sponsored by or affiliated with Manulife. Insurance products are offered by Wenting Hu, licensed Life Insurance Agent (ON · BC · AB). E&OE.
Where to go from here: life & health insurance — how we compare 8+ carriers, or get a side-by-side quote that includes Manulife Vitality and the best plain alternatives.
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// the only variable in this plan that gets more expensive every year is your age