(Real Estate Securities Trust)

Investment Objective

To seek to achieve a combination of long-term capital appreciation and current income.

Fees and Expenses

This table describes the fees and expenses that you may pay if shares of the fund are held by separate accounts of certain John Hancock insurance companies that fund variable annuity and variable life insurance contracts. They are based on expenses incurred during the fund's most recent fiscal year expressed as a percentage of the fund's average net assets during the year. In subsequent periods, the fund's expense ratio may increase due to decreases in fund assets attributable to redemptions and declines in portfolio valuation. The fees and expenses do not reflect fees and expenses of any separate account that may use the fund as its underlying investment medium and would be higher if they did.

Annual Fund Operating Expenses (expenses that you pay each year as a percentage of the value of your investment)

Annual Fund Operating Expenses (Real Estate Securities Trust)	Series I	Series II	NAV
Management fee	0.70%	0.70%	0.70%
Distribution and service (12b-1) fees	0.05%	0.25%	none
Other Expenses	0.04%	0.04%	0.04%
Total annual fund operating expenses	0.79%	0.99%	0.74%

Examples. The examples are intended to help you compare the cost of investing in the fund with the cost of investing in other mutual funds. The examples assume that $10,000 is invested in the fund for the periods indicated and then all shares are redeemed at the end of those periods. The examples also assume that the investment has a 5% return each year and that the fund's operating expenses remain the same. Although your actual costs may be higher or lower, based on these assumptions your costs would be:

Expense Example (Real Estate Securities Trust) (USD $)	1 Year	3 Years	5 Years	10 Years
Series I	81	252	439	978
Series II	101	315	547	1,213
NAV	76	237	411	918

Portfolio Turnover

The fund pays transaction costs, such as commissions, when it buys and sells securities (or "turns over" its portfolio). A higher portfolio turnover rate may indicate higher transaction costs. These costs, which are not reflected in annual fund operating expenses or in the example, affect the fund's performance. During its most recent fiscal year, the fund's portfolio turnover rate was 99% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

Under normal market conditions, the fund invests at least 80% of its net assets (plus any borrowings for investment purposes) in equity securities of real estate investment trusts ("REITs") and real estate companies. Equity securities include common stock, preferred stock and securities convertible into common stock.

A company is considered to be a real estate company if, in the opinion of the subadvisor, at least 50% of its revenues or 50% of the market value of its assets at the time its securities are purchased by the fund are attributed to the ownership, construction, management or sale of real estate.

The subadvisor looks for real estate securities it believes will provide superior returns to the fund, and attempts to focus on companies with the potential for stock price appreciation and a record of paying dividends.

To find these issuers, the subadvisor tracks economic conditions and real estate market performance in major metropolitan areas and analyzes performance of various property types within those regions. To perform this analysis, it uses information from a nationwide network of real estate professionals to evaluate the holdings of real estate companies and REITs in which the fund may invest. Its analysis also includes the companies' management structure, financial structure and business strategy. The goal of these analyses is to determine which of the issuers the subadvisor believes will be the most profitable to the fund. The subadvisor also considers the effect of the real estate securities markets in general when making investment decisions. The subadvisor does not attempt to time the market.

A REIT invests primarily in income-producing real estate or makes loans to persons involved in the real estate industry.

Some REITs, called equity REITs, buy real estate and pay investors income from the rents received from the real estate owned by the REIT and from any profits on the sale of its properties. Other REITs, called mortgage REITs, lend money to building developers and other real estate companies and pay investors income from the interest paid on those loans. There are also hybrid REITs which engage in both owning real estate and making loans.

If a REIT meets certain requirements, it is not taxed on the income it distributes to its investors.

The fund may realize some short-term gains or losses if the subadvisor chooses to sell a security because it believes that one or more of the following is true:

• A security is not fulfilling its investment purpose;

• A security has reached its optimum valuation; or

• A particular company or general economic conditions have changed.

Based on its recent practices, the subadvisor expects that the fund's assets will be invested primarily in equity REITs. In changing market conditions, the fund may invest in other types of REITs.

When the subadvisor believes that it is prudent, the fund may invest a portion of its assets in other types of securities. These securities may include convertible securities, short-term securities, bonds, notes, securities of companies not principally engaged in the real estate industry, non-leveraged stock index futures contracts and other similar securities. (Stock index futures contracts, can help the fund's cash assets remain liquid while performing more like stocks.)

The fund may invest up to 10% of its total assets in securities of foreign real estate companies.

The fund is non-diversified, which means that it may invest its assets in a smaller number of issuers than a diversified fund.

Principal Risks of Investing in the Fund

The fund is subject to risks, and you could lose money by investing in the fund. The principal risks of investing in the fund include:

Active management risk The subadvisor's investment strategy may fail to produce the intended result.

Convertible securities risk The market values of convertible securities tend to decline as interest rates increase and, conversely, to increase as interest rates decline. In addition, as the market price of the underlying common stock declines below the conversion price, the price of the convertible security tends to be increasingly influenced more by the yield of the convertible security.

Credit and counterparty risk The issuer or guarantor of a fixed-income security, the counterparty to an over-the-counter derivatives contract or a borrower of a fund's securities may be unable or unwilling to make timely principal, interest or settlement payments, or otherwise honor its obligations. Funds that invest in fixed-income securities are subject to varying degrees of risk that the issuers of the securities will have their credit rating downgraded or will default, potentially reducing a fund's share price and income level.

Equity securities risk The value of a company's equity securities is subject to changes in the company's financial condition, and overall market and economic conditions.

Foreign securities risk As compared to U.S. companies, there may be less publicly available information relating to foreign companies. Foreign securities may be subject to foreign taxes. The value of foreign securities is subject to currency fluctuations and adverse political and economic developments. Investments in emerging-market countries are subject to greater levels of foreign investment risk.

Hedging, derivatives and other strategic transactions risk Hedging and other strategic transactions may increase the volatility of a fund and, if the transaction is not successful, could result in a significant loss to a fund. The use of derivative instruments could produce disproportionate gains or losses, more than the principal amount invested. Investing in derivative instruments involves risks different from, or possibly greater than, the risks associated with investing directly in securities and other traditional investments and, in a down market, could become harder to value or sell at a fair price. The following is a list of certain derivatives and other strategic transactions in which the fund may invest and the main risks associated with each of them:

Futures contracts Counterparty risk, liquidity risk (i.e., the inability to enter into closing transactions) and risk of disproportionate loss are the principal risks of engaging in transactions involving futures contracts.

Industry or sector investing risk The performance of a fund that focuses on a single industry or sector of the economy depends in large part on the performance of that industry or sector. As a result, the value of an investment may fluctuate more widely than it would in a fund that is diversified across industries or sectors.

Issuer risk An issuer of a security may perform poorly and, therefore, the value of its stocks and bonds may decline. An issuer of securities held by the fund could default or have its credit rating downgraded.

Liquidity risk Exposure exists when trading volume, lack of a market maker or legal restrictions impair the ability to sell particular securities or close derivative positions at an advantageous price.

Medium and smaller company risk The prices of medium and smaller company stocks can change more frequently and dramatically than those of large company stocks. For purposes of the fund's investment policies, the market capitalization of a company is based on its market capitalization at the time the fund purchases the company's securities. Market capitalizations of companies change over time.

Non-diversified risk Overall risk can be reduced by investing in securities from a diversified pool of issuers and is increased by investing in securities of a small number of issuers. Investments in a non-diversified fund may magnify the fund's losses from adverse events affecting a particular issuer.

Real estate securities risk Investing in securities of companies in the real estate industry subjects a fund to the risks associated with the direct ownership of real estate.

Past Performance

The following information provides some indication of the risks of investing in the fund by showing changes in performance from year to year and by showing how average annual returns for specified periods compare with those of a broad measure of market performance. Unless all share classes shown in the table have the same inception date, performance shown for periods prior to the inception date of a class is the performance of the fund's oldest share class. This pre-inception performance, with respect to any other share class of the fund, has not been adjusted to reflect the 12b-1 fees of that class. As a result, the pre-inception performance shown for a share class other than the oldest share class may be higher or lower than it would be if adjusted to reflect the 12b-1 fees of the class. The performance information below does not reflect fees and expenses of any variable insurance contract which may use JHVIT as its underlying investment medium. If such fees and expenses had been reflected, performance would be lower. The past performance of the fund is not necessarily an indication of how the fund will perform in the future.

Calendar year total returns for Series I:

Best Quarter:     32.43% (Quarter ended 9/30/2009)

Worst Quarter:   -39.92% (Quarter ended 12/31/2008)

Average Annual Total Returns for period ended 12/31/2012

Average Annual Total Returns (Real Estate Securities Trust)	1 Year	5 Years	10 Years	Inception Date
Series I	17.26%	5.51%	12.09%	Apr. 30, 1987
Series II	17.09%	5.31%	11.88%	Jan. 28, 2002
NAV	17.33%	5.57%	12.15%	Feb. 28, 2005
MSCI U.S. REIT Index	17.77%	5.58%	11.58%	Apr. 30, 1987