(Short Term Government Income Trust)

Investment Objective

To seek a high level of current income consistent with preservation of capital. Maintaining a stable share price is a secondary goal.

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 (Short Term Government Income Trust)	Series I	Series II	NAV
Management fee	0.56%	0.56%	0.56%
Distribution and service (12b-1) fees	0.05%	0.25%	none
Other Expenses	0.04%	0.04%	0.04%
Total annual fund operating expenses	0.65%	0.85%	0.60%

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 (Short Term Government Income Trust) (USD $)	1 Year	3 Years	5 Years	10 Years
Series I	66	208	362	810
Series II	87	271	471	1,049
NAV	61	192	335	750

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 71% of the average value of its portfolio.

Principal Investment Strategies

The fund seeks to achieve its investment objective by investing under normal circumstances at least 80% of its net assets in obligations issued or guaranteed by the U.S. government and its agencies, authorities or instrumentalities (U.S. government securities). Under normal circumstances, the fund's effective duration is no more than three years.

U.S. government securities may be supported by:

• The full faith and credit of the United States government, such as Treasury bills, notes and bonds, and Government National Mortgage Association Certificates.

• The right of the issuer to borrow from the U.S. Treasury, such as obligations of the Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corporation.

• The credit of the instrumentality, such as obligations of the Federal National Mortgage Association.

The fund may invest in higher-risk securities, including U.S. dollar-denominated foreign government securities and asset-backed securities. It may also invest up to 10% of its net assets in foreign governmental high yield securities (junk bonds) rated as low as B and their unrated equivalents.

In managing the portfolio of the fund, the subadvisor considers interest rate trends to determine which types of bonds to emphasize at a given time. The fund typically favors mortgage-related securities when it anticipates that interest rates will be relatively stable, and favors U.S. Treasuries at other times. Because high yield bonds often respond to market movements differently from U.S. government bonds, the fund may use them to manage volatility.

The fund may invest in mortgage-related securities and Treasury futures to protect against adverse changes and manage risks.

The fund may invest in other investment companies, including exchange traded funds ("ETFs"), and engage in short sales.

Under normal circumstances, the fund's effective duration is no more than three years which means that the fund may purchase securities with a duration of greater than three years, as long as the fund's average duration does not exceed three years.

The fund may trade securities actively which could increase transaction costs (thus lowering performance).

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.

Changing distribution levels risk The distribution amounts paid by the fund generally depend on the amount of income and/or dividends received by the fund's investments. As a result of market, interest rate and other circumstances, the amount of cash available for distribution by the fund and the fund's distribution rate may vary or decline. The risk of such variability is accentuated in currently prevailing market and interest rate circumstances.

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.

Exchange-traded funds risk Owning an ETF generally reflects the risks of owning the underlying securities it is designed to track.

Fixed-income securities risk Fixed-income securities are affected by changes in interest rates and credit quality. A rise in interest rates typically causes bond prices to fall. The longer the average maturity of the bonds held by the fund, the more sensitive the fund is likely to be to interest-rate changes. There is the possibility that the issuer of the security will not repay all or a portion of the principal borrowed and will not make all interest payments.

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.

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.

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.

Lower-rated Fixed-income securities risk and high-yield securities risk Lower-rated fixed-income securities and high-yield fixed-income securities (commonly known as "junk bonds") are subject to greater credit quality risk and risk of default than higher-rated fixed-income securities. These securities may be considered speculative and the value of these securities can be more volatile due to increased sensitivity to adverse issuer, political, regulatory, market or economic developments and can be difficult to resell.

Mortgage-backed and asset-backed securities risk Different types of mortgage-backed securities and asset-backed securities are subject to different combinations of prepayment, extension, interest-rate and/or other market risks.

Short sales risk Short sales involve costs and risk. The fund must pay the lender interest on the security it borrows, and the fund will lose money if the price of the security increases between the time of the short sale and the date when the fund replaces the borrowed security.

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 NAV:

Best Quarter:     1.87% (Quarter ended 6/30/2010)

Worst Quarter:   -0.58% (Quarter ended 12/31/2010)

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

Average Annual Total Returns (Short Term Government Income Trust)	1 Year	Since Inception	Inception Date
Series I	1.21%	2.29%	Apr. 30, 2010
Series II	1.01%	2.16%	Apr. 30, 2010
NAV	1.18%	2.31%	Jan. 02, 2009
Barclays U.S. Government 1-5 Year Index	0.97%	2.17%	Jan. 02, 2009