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Manulife Vitality: How It Works, What It Costs, and Whether It Is Worth It
By Parvesh Benning, Licensed Life Insurance Broker | Updated: October 15, 2026
The discount only sticks if you actually use the program, and in my experience, many clients don’t.
Manulife Vitality is a wellness rewards program attached to your Manulife life insurance. It can lower the cost of your coverage, help reduce the cost of certain fitness devices when you meet the program requirements, and pay you in gift cards for healthy habits you may already have.
The catch is that those rewards, the insurance discount included, are tied to how actively you engage. This guide covers how it works, what it really costs, and when it is worth it.
Manulife Vitality: How It Works, What It Costs, and Whether It Is Worth It
By Parvesh Benning, Licensed Life Insurance Broker | Updated: October 15, 2026
The discount only sticks if you actually use the program, and in my experience, many clients don’t.
Manulife Vitality is a wellness rewards program attached to your Manulife life insurance. It can lower the cost of your coverage, help reduce the cost of certain fitness devices when you meet the program requirements, and pay you in gift cards for healthy habits you may already have.
The catch is that those rewards, the insurance discount included, are tied to how actively you engage. This guide covers how it works, what it really costs, and when it is worth it.
Here is the part the advertising skips: the savings move in both directions. Choose a policy with Vitality Plus and you start with a discount, but if life gets busy and you stop logging activity, that same cost of insurance can climb back up on your next policy anniversary. Whether the program fits comes down to one honest question about yourself, and I will get to it below.
The short version
Manulife Vitality is an optional wellness program on Manulife life insurance. A free tier, Vitality Go, comes with eligible plans and gives you brand discounts and gift-card draws. A paid tier, Vitality Plus, costs $6 a month on Family Term and Manulife UL, and adds bigger rewards, a discounted or free Apple Watch or Garmin, and a discount on your cost of insurance that runs from 0% to 15% depending on how engaged you are.
Is it worth it? For a disciplined, active person who will actually track their fitness, yes, it can return far more than $6 a month.
For many clients it sits unused, and that upfront discount can quietly reverse. It should never decide which policy you buy: it is a bonus on top of the right one.
A Quick Word on Manulife Before We Get Into Vitality
Who they are
Manulife is one of Canada’s largest and oldest insurers. Vitality rides on top of their life insurance, so the program is only as good as the policy underneath it.
Why that matters here
A rewards program does not fix a policy that was the wrong fit to begin with. Get the coverage right first, then treat Vitality as the extra.
Vitality is a wellness and rewards program attached to a Manulife policy, not a standalone product. So before you weigh the points and the discounts, it is worth knowing the company behind it. We keep the full company breakdown, the product lineup, the underwriting notes, and where Manulife tends to win or lose, on a separate page so this guide can stay focused on the program itself.
If you want that side of it, read our full Manulife life insurance review. For this guide, the only thing you need to carry forward is that Vitality is the add-on, and the policy is the foundation. We will come back to that more than once, because it changes how you should read every reward and discount below.
What Manulife Vitality Actually Is (and the One Distinction That Trips Everyone Up)
Manulife Vitality is an optional wellness program that rewards you for healthy habits you may already have. You earn points for things like walking, workouts, a dental visit, or completing a short health review. Those points move you up through four statuses, and your status decides how big your rewards get. The program is run by a third party, The Vitality Group, in association with Manulife, and on a life policy it can also nudge your cost of insurance up or down. Here’s the honest version of how it works.
The part that confuses almost everyone is that there are two versions, and they are not the same thing. One is free and basically passive. The other costs money every month and is the one that touches your premium. Sorting out which one you actually have matters more than any single reward, so start here.
Vitality Go
Free. Comes with eligible plans.
The base tier. No monthly charge, and it lands automatically with a qualifying Manulife plan.
You still get brand discounts (think a flat 15% off adidas) and gift-card draws, but the reward levels stay low and it does not touch your insurance cost.
Vitality Plus
Paid. This is the one that affects your premium.
The engaged tier. It carries a monthly Vitality charge (typically $6 on Family Term and Manulife UL), and the rewards scale with your status.
That same adidas discount can climb toward 30% at higher status, and on a life policy your cost of insurance adjusts based on how engaged you are.
So Go is the freebie that comes along for the ride, and Plus is the one you pay for and the one that can move your premium. The life products covered in this guide, Family Term, Manulife UL, and Manulife Par, are all Vitality Plus products. Which version maps to which plan can change over time, so confirm the current setup with a broker before you assume anything.
If you are still deciding which policy to build Vitality on top of, our guide to whole life insurance and our walkthrough on choosing a term length are the better starting point. Pick the coverage first. The rewards question comes after.
What Is Your Vitality Age, and Does It Affect Your Premium?
Your Vitality Age is the program’s read on how old your body acts versus how old you actually are. You get it by completing the Vitality Health Review, a short questionnaire plus a few basic health numbers like blood pressure and cholesterol. The point is simple: a 45 year old in strong shape might show a Vitality Age of 39, and the program uses that as a motivator to keep the gap moving in the right direction.
Two things people get wrong:
Your Vitality Age does not directly set your premium. It is a wellness score, not an underwriting class. Your actual rate is set when you apply, based on standard underwriting.
What moves your cost on a Plus policy is your Vitality Status, the points you rack up over the year, not the age number itself. The Vitality Age mostly exists to nudge you into earning those points.
Completing that health review early matters for another reason. It is worth a chunk of bonus points in your first 90 days, which gives your status a head start. More on the points and what they unlock next. And if you have a health condition that you think could complicate the application itself, that is a separate conversation worth having first; our guide to life insurance with medical conditions walks through how that gets handled.
What Does Manulife Vitality Cost, and Is It Actually Worth It?
On a Vitality Plus life policy you pay a monthly Vitality charge, typically $6 on Family Term and Manulife UL, and in exchange you start with an automatic 10% reward for choosing Plus. After that, your cost of insurance adjusts on each policy anniversary based on your Vitality Status, so it can move either way. Stay engaged and it can drop further. Go quiet and it can climb back up.
I’ve seen the cost move the wrong way too often, and it’s always a surprise to the client. Someone signs up on a 20 year term policy, takes the discount up front, then never actually uses the program. A year later, at the first policy anniversary, the premium comes in a little higher than they expected, and now it feels like a bait and switch even though it isn’t. That’s why I’m blunt with people up front: the discount is a direct reflection of participating. If you don’t think you’ll actively engage, you should at least know that going in, and we might look at a cleaner alternative, whether from Manulife or another carrier.
What each status does to your cost
| Vitality Status | Points to reach it | Effect on cost of insurance |
|---|---|---|
| Platinum | 10,000 | Up to 15% savings |
| Gold | 7,000 | 10% savings (holds your starting discount) |
| Silver | 3,500 | 2% savings |
| Bronze | 0 | 0% savings |
Figures based on current Manulife Vitality program terms, illustrative only and subject to underwriting and change. Status thresholds and savings levels can change without notice.
Read that table the way an underwriter would, not the way the brochure wants you to. The “up to 15%” is the Platinum ceiling, and it takes real, sustained activity all year to hold it. Gold just keeps your original 10% flat. Slip to Silver or Bronze and you are paying more than the Gold baseline, on top of the $6 charge you are paying either way. That’s the math that decides whether this is a deal or a drag.
So, is it worth it?
Where it works
For someone fit, or genuinely trying to get there, who tracks their fitness and stays on top of it. I’ve seen highly engaged clients pull real value out of this: discounted fitness devices and discount codes that more than cover the charge. If you’re disciplined, it can return far more than $6 a month.
Where it doesn’t
For many clients, honestly. After years of watching this program, what I see most often is clients who don’t participate. The program looks attractive, but they don’t have the time to learn it or use it, so it just sits there. A disengaged client paying the charge at Bronze can end up worse off than a comparable policy with no Vitality at all.
It really does come back to you. Do you have the time and the discipline to track these things, week after week, to make sure it’s a fit? If the answer is an honest yes, take Plus and use it hard. If it’s a maybe, skip Plus. Every Manulife individual policy already comes with Vitality Go at no cost, and you can upgrade the rewards side later. The premium savings are different: they only come on a Family Term or UL policy issued with Vitality Plus, and adding them afterwards may mean converting your coverage, if that’s allowed at all. There’s no shame in either, but paying for a program you won’t touch is the one outcome I try to steer clients away from.
Not sure which side of that you fall on? That’s exactly the kind of thing worth talking through before you sign anything. We can run the Vitality charge against the savings you’d realistically earn, compare it to a clean policy without it, and price it across multiple carriers in one go. See how we compare rates across carriers, then get in touch and we’ll find the right fit.
How Do You Earn Vitality Points?
You earn Vitality Points for everyday healthy habits, and most of them are things you might already be doing. There are two buckets: a one-time chunk of points for getting set up, and ongoing points for staying active. The faster you bank the setup points, the quicker your status climbs, which is why the first 90 days matter most.
Big one-time points (do these early)
- Complete the Vitality Health Review in your first 90 days
1,500 pts (Family Term, UL) / 1,250 (Par) - Non-smoker declaration
up to 1,000 pts - Preventive screenings (dental exam, flu shot, eligible health checks)
points per activity
Ongoing points (week after week)
- Daily activity tracked on a wearable: steps, workouts, bike rides
up to ~40 pts/day - Logged gym workouts and submitted athletic events
points per session - Meditation and healthy sleep
a few pts/day each - Hitting your weekly target earns a Vitality Wheel spin
bonus points or gift card
Add it up and an active person can clear well past the 10,000 points that Platinum needs over a year. That’s the whole game: the points decide your status, and your status decides both your rewards and, on a Plus policy, your cost of insurance. Point values and thresholds get revised periodically, so treat these as a guide and check the current program terms in the app before you bank on a specific number. Worth repeating one more time: this only pays off if you’ll actually do it.
What Rewards Do You Get, and How Do Vitality Go and Plus Differ?
Your points unlock discounts and perks from outside partners, and the size of those perks depends on which tier you’re on and how high your status climbs. Both versions get you into the rewards. Vitality Plus simply scales them up and ties them to your status, where Go keeps them flat.
A word on that Apple Watch, because it’s the reward that pulls people in and the one most often misread. It is not handed to you free, and it only works with an iPhone. You pay for it over 24 monthly payments, and the Series 11 and Ultra 3 also have an initial payment (the SE 3 doesn’t). Each monthly payment can drop as low as $0, depending on how many Vitality Points you earn. Earn fewer and you pay more of it. Same idea as the insurance discount: the reward tracks the effort.
One note on group plans
If you have Vitality through a workplace health and dental plan rather than your own life policy, the rewards work similarly but the structure and pricing differ, and individual coverage generally gives you more control over the rewards you can reach. If you’re weighing the two, our overview of group policy life insurance covers where group fits and where it falls short.
One last thing to keep in mind: partners, discount levels, and point thresholds change often, and eligibility varies by province, status, and whether your policy is in force. So treat any specific reward as a snapshot, not a promise. Check the current lineup in the Manulife Vitality app or at manulife.ca/vitality before you count on a particular perk.
Do Fitness Trackers Lower Life Insurance Premiums in Canada?
No insurer I work with in Canada will price your application on what your watch says. In my practice, the one place a tracker can change what you pay is Manulife Vitality Plus, and even there it only counts after the policy is issued, inside limits the contract sets on day one.
So there are two separate questions: what sets your price when you apply, and what can move it afterwards. People blur them together all the time.
When you apply
Tracker not used
You’re priced on your medical history, weight for your height, blood pressure and any tests the insurer asks for.
Once the policy is issued
Tracker not used
Your rating is set. Manulife says Vitality app data is never used to change your insurance risk classification.
Each policy anniversary
Tracker counts
On Family Term and UL with Vitality Plus, your Vitality Status moves your cost up or down, never past the guaranteed maximum. On Par, it feeds a Vitality dividend instead.
At Application vs After Your Policy Is Issued
Vitality isn’t part of underwriting, and a bad result inside the program doesn’t hurt your policy. I’ve told clients that for years, and Manulife’s current wording backs it up: activity data is never used to change your insurance risk or coverage.
What fitness can do when you apply
Help through what it changes: your weight, blood pressure and cholesterol. Not through your step count. More on that in how exercise can lower your insurance premiums.
If your health improves after approval
A rating doesn’t have to follow you forever. You can ask the insurer to review it with fresh evidence, like labs, vitals or a report from your doctor. Your Vitality Status doesn’t count as that evidence.
The first client I’d ever seen reach Platinum
His status kept the premium low on the Manulife policy he already had. When he needed more coverage, it counted for nothing anywhere else.
Platinum
His Vitality Status
200%+
Minimum rating at one insurer
325%+
Minimum rating at another
Both ratings came back from anonymous preliminary checks, before any medical records were requested, and neither insurer ruled out a decline. They were assessing his medical history, not his workouts. A 200% rating means roughly double the standard price.
At the end of the day, you probably want the lowest premium first and foremost. So compare term life quotes across insurers on the base price before deciding whether Vitality earns a place on top.
What Your Device Shares, and Who Sees It
Your device data goes to The Vitality Group, the company that runs the program with Manulife. Manulife says your health and activity data isn’t shared with it directly, so each step down the chain sees less.
Your watch or app records what you track. You choose which device to connect and what to share.
The Vitality Group gets the activity you share and turns it into Vitality Points.
Manulife gets your Vitality Status, which sets your savings or your Vitality dividend. Not the readings behind it.
The point rules and rewards can change over time. The guarantees in your contract don’t.
Which Devices Count, and Keeping Them Synced
I’m a bad example here. When I tried the program myself, I hated wearing the Garmin, switched to an Apple Watch, and with a month left in one program year I was still 300 points short of Silver. I just wasn’t disciplined about recording things. For the right client, though, it can be a brilliant program.
Manulife says just about any popular wearable works, and a fitness app on your phone can track some activities without one:
- Apple Watch
- Garmin
- Fitbit
- Oura
- WHOOP
- Samsung Health
- Google Fit
- Strava
What keeps the points coming
Open the app regularly. Manulife says that’s what sends your activity, and points can take up to 48 hours to show.
If a device breaks, use your phone. One client’s Fitbit died, and she simply relinked the program to her iPhone.
Pick what you’ll wear every day, not the cheapest option.
Buying a Garmin for it? Vitality Go members currently get 30% off, and Vitality Plus adds a complimentary vívosmart 5. Offers change, so check Manulife’s current list first.
Will Wearable Data Change Life Insurance Pricing Later?
Not yet, and nobody can say for sure that it will. Years ago I wrote that AI and predictive analytics would likely make buying insurance completely different within a few years. Part of that has happened.
Already here
Predictive models that decide who can skip blood and urine tests. That’s how accelerated underwriting works.
Not here yet
An insurer pricing an individual policy on your wearable data. I haven’t seen it in my practice.
How Vitality Works on a Manulife Par Policy (It’s Not the Same)
On a participating whole life policy, Vitality does not lower your cost of insurance the way it does on term or universal life. Instead, your engagement can feed into a Vitality dividend, paid as part of the policy’s participating dividend. The points, the statuses, the rewards all still work the same. What changes is how the savings reach you: through the dividend, not through a discount on your premium.
That difference matters, because dividends on a par policy are not guaranteed. So this is not a promised saving. It is a potential boost to a value that already moves year to year. Read it as a possible bonus on top of a permanent policy, not as a fixed discount you can bank on.
Two things specific to Par worth knowing
The Vitality charge changes with your payment period. Unlike the flat $6 on Family Term and UL, Par’s monthly charge scales with how fast you pay: $15 a month on a 10-pay, $10 on a 20-pay, $6 on pay-to-90, and $4 on pay-to-100. Confirm the current figures on your own illustration.
Pay-to-100 gets no Vitality dividend. If your Par policy is structured as pay-to-age-100, the Vitality dividend is not available, even though you’d still pay the charge. That’s a combination to flag before you sign, not after.
If you’re looking at par whole life in the first place, the Vitality piece should be near the bottom of your list. The dividend scale, the guarantees, and how the policy is funded matter far more to the long-term result than a wellness add-on. Our guide to permanent life insurance is the better lens for that decision, and a quick conversation can sort out whether the Vitality charge even earns its keep on your specific structure.
Manulife Vitality: Frequently Asked Questions
QUESTION 01
Is Manulife Vitality worth it?
It depends on whether you’ll use it. For a disciplined, active person who tracks their fitness, Vitality Plus can return well more than the monthly charge through device rewards, discount codes, and cost-of-insurance savings. For someone who signs up and forgets, it tends to sit unused, and paying the charge while parked at Bronze status can leave you worse off than a comparable policy without it. It should never decide which policy you buy.
QUESTION 02
How much does Manulife Vitality cost?
Vitality Go is free and comes with eligible plans. Vitality Plus carries a monthly Vitality charge, typically $6 on Family Term and Manulife UL. On a Par policy the charge varies by payment period, from $4 to $15 a month. These are guaranteed charges and are separate from your insurance premium, so weigh the charge against the savings you’d realistically earn.
QUESTION 03
Can Manulife Vitality increase my insurance cost?
Yes, on a Vitality Plus life policy the cost adjusts in both directions. You start with an automatic 10% reward for choosing Plus, then each year your cost of insurance moves up or down based on your Vitality Status. Reach Platinum and you can save up to 15%. Drop to Silver or Bronze and you pay more than the Gold baseline. The discount reflects participation, so low engagement can raise your cost, not just fail to lower it.
QUESTION 04
Do you really get a free Apple Watch?
Not outright. You pay for it over 24 monthly payments, and the Series 11 and Ultra 3 also have an initial payment (the SE 3 doesn’t). Each monthly payment can drop as low as $0, depending on how many Vitality Points you earn, so it’s an earned reward, not a giveaway. It’s a Vitality Plus reward and needs an iPhone.
QUESTION 05
Does my Vitality Status reset each year?
Your Vitality Points reset to zero at the start of each program year, so you rebuild your status annually. Your reward level from the prior year generally carries forward so your benefits don’t drop overnight. The practical takeaway: this rewards consistent, year-over-year engagement, not a single good month.
QUESTION 06
What’s the difference between Vitality Go and Vitality Plus?
Vitality Go is the free base tier that comes with eligible plans. It gives you flat-level brand discounts and gift-card draws but does not affect your insurance cost. Vitality Plus is the paid tier; it scales rewards with your status and is the only version that can lower (or raise) your cost of insurance. The life products covered here, Family Term, Manulife UL, and Par, are all Vitality Plus.
QUESTION 07
Does Manulife see my fitness tracker data?
Not directly. Your device data goes to The Vitality Group, the company that runs the program, and Manulife says the readings themselves aren’t shared with it. What counts toward your policy is your Vitality Status. Manulife also says app data is never used to change your insurance risk classification.
QUESTION 08
Does Vitality Status help with another insurer?
No. Your Vitality Status only affects your Manulife Vitality Plus coverage, and in my experience it carries no weight with other insurers. A Platinum client of mine needed more coverage, and two insurers that reviewed his full medical history still started him at ratings of at least 200% and 325%, or two and 3.25 times the standard price.
Broker takeaway: don’t buy a Manulife policy just for Vitality. Buy the right policy first, then decide whether the program is worth adding on top.
Check Whether Vitality Plus Is Worth Adding
If you’re weighing a Manulife Vitality policy while working on your own wellness goals, a quick conversation with a broker can tell you whether the program earns its keep on your specific plan, or whether a cleaner policy without it serves you better. We compare options across more than 20 Canadian carriers, so you see the real trade-off before you commit, not after.
At Protect Your Wealth, we’ve provided expert life insurance and segregated fund solutions since 2007. We’ll help you find the right policy for your family or business, built around what you actually need.
Contact us or call 1-877-654-6119 to talk to a broker directly. We’re proudly based in Hamilton, and serve clients across Ontario, Alberta, British Columbia, Manitoba, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, and Saskatchewan, including Toronto, Kitchener, Burnaby, Vancouver, Medicine Hat, and Red Deer.
