XML 35 R89.htm IDEA: XBRL DOCUMENT v2.4.0.6
(Total Bond Market Trust B)

Investment Objective

To seek to track the performance of the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (the "Barclays Index") (which represents the U.S. investment grade bond market).

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.

~http://jhvit-20130429/role/ShareholderFeesDataANNN column period compact * column rr_ProspectusShareClassAxis compact * row primary compact * row dei_LegalEntityAxis compact jhvit-20130429_S000008214Member ~

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

Annual Fund Operating Expenses (Total Bond Market Trust B)
Series I
Series II
NAV
Management fee 0.47% [1] 0.47% [1] 0.47%
Distribution and service (12b-1) fees 0.05% [1] 0.25% [1] none
Other Expenses 0.04% [1] 0.04% [1] 0.04%
Total annual fund operating expenses 0.56% [1] 0.76% [1] 0.51%
Contractual expense reimbursement [2] (0.26%) [1] (0.26%) [1] (0.26%)
Net fund operating expenses 0.30% [1] 0.50% [1] 0.25%
[1] For funds and classes that have not commenced operations or have an inception date of less than six months as of December 31, 2012, expenses are estimated.
[2] The Advisor has agreed to waive its advisory fee (or, if necessary, reimburse expenses of the fund) in an amount so that the fund's annual operating expenses do not exceed its "Net Operating Expenses" as shown in the table above. A fund's "Total Operating Expenses" includes all of its operating expenses including advisory and Rule 12b-1 fees, but excludes taxes, brokerage commissions, interest, short dividends, acquired fund fees, litigation and indemnification expenses and extraordinary expenses of the fund not incurred in the ordinary course of the fund's business. Under the agreement, the Advisor's obligation to provide the expense cap will remain in effect until April 30, 2014 unless renewed by mutual agreement of the fund and the Advisor based upon a determination that this is appropriate under the circumstances at that time.

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 (Total Bond Market Trust B) (USD $)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Series I
31 125 259 649
Series II
51 189 369 890
NAV
26 109 231 588
~ http://jhvit-20130429/role/ExpenseExampleNoRedemptionANNN column period compact * column rr_ProspectusShareClassAxis compact * row primary compact * row dei_LegalEntityAxis compact jhvit-20130429_S000008214Member ~

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 29% 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 borrowing for investment purposes) in securities listed in the Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index (the Barclays Index).

The fund is an index fund, which differs from actively managed funds. Actively managed funds seek to outperform their respective indices through research and analysis. Over time, their performance may differ significantly from their respective indices. The fund is a passively managed fund that seeks to mirror the performance of its target index, minimizing performance differences over time.

An index is an unmanaged group of securities whose overall performance is used as an investment benchmark. Indices may track broad investment markets, such as the global equity market, or more narrow investment markets, such as the U.S. small cap equity market. The fund attempts to match the performance of the Barclays Index by holding a representative sample of the securities that comprise the Barclays Index. However, an index fund has operating expenses and transaction costs, while a market index does not. Therefore, the fund, while it attempts to track its target index closely, typically will be unable to match the performance of the target index exactly.

The fund is an intermediate term bond fund of high and medium credit quality that seek to track the performance of the Barclays Index, which broadly represents the U.S. investment grade bond market.

The subadvisor employs a passive management strategy using quantitative techniques to select individual securities that provide a representative sample of the securities in the Barclays Index.

The Barclays Index consists of dollar-denominated, fixed rate, investment grade debt securities with maturities generally greater than one year and outstanding par values of at least $200 million, including:

  • U.S. Treasury and agency securities;

  • Asset-backed and mortgage-backed securities, including mortgage pass-through securities and commercial mortgage-backed securities ("CMBS") and collateralized mortgage offerings ("CMOs");

  • Corporate bonds, both U.S. and foreign (if dollar-denominated); and

  • Foreign government and agency securities (if dollar-denominated).

The subadvisor selects securities to match, as closely as practicable, the Barclays Index's duration, cash flow, sector, credit quality, callability and other key performance characteristics.

The Barclays Index composition may change from time to time. The subadvisor will reflect those changes as soon as practicable.

The fund may purchase other types of securities that are not primary investment vehicles. These would include, for example, certain derivatives (investments whose value is based on indexes or other securities) such as futures contracts, interest-rate swaps and options.

Use of Hedging and Other Strategic Transactions. The fund is authorized to use all of the various investment strategies referred to under "Additional Information About the Funds' Principal Risks —Hedging, derivatives and other strategic trans actions risk" such as futures contracts, interest-rate swaps and options.

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:

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.

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. 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.

Interest-rate swaps Counterparty risk, liquidity risk (i.e., the inability to enter into closing transactions), interest-rate risk and risk of disproportionate loss are the principal risks of engaging in transactions involving interest-rate swaps.

Options Counterparty risk, liquidity risk (i.e., the inability to enter into closing transactions) and risk of dispropor-tionate loss are the principal risks of engaging in transactions involving options. Counterparty risk does not apply to exchange-traded options.

Index management risk Certain factors may cause a fund that is an index fund to track its target index less closely. For example, a subadvisor may select securities that are not fully representative of the index, and the fund's transaction expenses, and the size and timing of its cash flows, may result in the fund's performance being different than that of its index. Moreover, the fund will generally reflect the performance of its target index even when the index does not perform well.

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.

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.

TBA mortgage contracts TBA mortgage contracts involve a risk of loss if the value of the underlying security to be purchased declines prior to delivery date. The yield obtained for such securities may be higher or lower than yields available in the market on delivery date.

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. For periods prior to the inception date of the fund, performance shown is the actual performance of the sole share class of the fund's predecessor fund and has not been adjusted to reflect the Rule 12b-1 fees of any class of shares. As a result, pre-inception performance of the fund may be higher than 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:

Bar Chart

Best Quarter:     4.46% (Quarter ended 12/31/2008)

Worst Quarter:   -2.52% (Quarter ended 6/30/2004)

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

Average Annual Total Returns (Total Bond Market Trust B)
1 Year
5 Years
10 Years
Inception Date
Series I
4.04% 6.04% 5.13% Nov. 05, 2012
Series II
4.06% 6.04% 5.13% Nov. 05, 2012
NAV
4.08% 6.04% 5.14% Apr. 30, 1998
Barclays U.S. Aggregate Bond Index
4.22% 5.95% 5.18% Apr. 29, 2005