Benefits guides

Plain answers about workplace health benefits in Canada. What expires and when, and how to find what your own plan has left.

• Do your health benefits expire at the end of the year?Most do, and they do not carry over. But your plan does not have one deadline, and vision usually is not on a yearly cycle at all.
• How to check your unused Sun Life benefitsSun Life makes you search one service at a time. Where to look, and why your coverage is set by your employer rather than by Sun Life.
• How to check your unused Manulife benefitsManulife ID is one login across their banking and investment products, which is where most people get stuck. Plus why some limits are counted in visits.
• How to check your unused GreenShield benefitsGreenShield shows what you have already claimed rather than what is left, and writes your limit as a sentence. How to work out the difference.
• Can you claim massage and physiotherapy on your taxes?Only the part your plan did not pay back, and only where the practitioner is authorized in the province you were treated in. Massage counts in five provinces.
• Can you claim the same expense on two benefits plans?Which plan goes first depends on who was treated, a child's order is set by whose birthday falls earlier in the year, and two 80% plans can reach the whole bill.