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(Utilities Trust)

Investment Objective

To seek capital growth and current income (income above that available from the fund invested entirely in equity securities).

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.

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

Annual Fund Operating Expenses (Utilities Trust)
Series I
Series II
NAV
Management fee 0.82% 0.82% 0.82%
Distribution and service (12b-1) fees 0.05% 0.25% none
Other Expenses 0.10% 0.10% 0.10%
Total annual fund operating expenses 0.97% 1.17% 0.92%

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 (Utilities Trust) (USD $)
1 Year
3 Years
5 Years
10 Years
Series I
99 309 536 1,190
Series II
119 372 644 1,420
NAV
94 293 509 1,131
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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 52% 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 of companies in the utilities industry. The subadvisor considers a company to be in the utilities industry if, at the time of investment, the subadvisor determines that a substantial portion (i.e., at least 50%) of the company's assets or revenues are derived from one or more utilities.

Companies in the utilities industry include: (i) companies engaged in the manufacture, production, generation, transmission, sale or distribution of electric, gas or other types of energy, water or other sanitary services; and (ii) companies engaged in telecommunications, including telephone, cellular telephone, satellite, microwave, cable television and other communications media (but not engaged in public broadcasting).

The fund primarily invests in equity securities, including common stocks and related securities, such as preferred stocks, convertible securities and depositary receipts, but may also invest in corporate bonds and other debt instruments. The subadvisor may invest up to 20% of the fund's net assets in lower rated debt instruments (commonly known as "junk bonds"). The fund may invest in companies of any size.

The subadvisor uses a bottom-up investment approach to buying and selling investments for the fund. Investments are selected primarily based on fundamental analysis of individual issuers and/or instruments in light of issuers' financial conditions and market, economic, political, and regulatory conditions. Factors considered for equity securities may include analysis of an issuer's earnings, cash flows, competitive position, and management ability. Factors considered for debt instruments may include the instrument's credit quality, collateral characteristics and indenture provisions and the issuer's management ability, capital structure, leverage, and ability to meet its current obligations. Quantitative models that systematically evaluate the valuation, price and earnings momentum, earnings quality, and other factors of the issuer of an equity security or the structure of a debt instrument may also be considered.

The subadvisor may invest the fund's assets in U.S. and foreign securities. The fund may invest up to 40% of its net assets in foreign securities (including emerging markets securities, Brady bonds and depositary receipts).

The fund may have exposure to foreign currencies through its investments in foreign securities, its direct holdings of foreign currencies, or through its use of foreign currency exchange contracts for the purchase or sale of a fixed quantity of a foreign currency at a future date.

While the fund may use derivatives for any investment purpose, to the extent the subadvisor uses derivatives, the subadvisor expects to use derivatives primarily to increase or decrease currency exposure.

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.

Currency risk Fluctuations in exchange rates may adversely affect the U.S. dollar value of a fund's investments. Currency risk includes both the risk that currencies in which a fund's investments are traded, or currencies in which a fund has taken an active position, will decline in value relative to the U.S. dollar.

Emerging markets risk The risks of investing in foreign securities are greater for investments in emerging markets. Emerging market countries may experience higher inflation, interest rates and unemployment as well as greater social, economic, regulatory and political uncertainties than more developed countries.

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.

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. 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:

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

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.

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.

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.

Large company risk Large-capitalization stocks as a group could fall out of favor with the market, causing the fund to underperform investments that focus on small- or medium-capitalization stocks. Larger, more established companies may be slow to respond to challenges and may grow more slowly than smaller companies. 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.

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.

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.

Utilities risk The fund's performance will be closely tied to the performance of utilities issuers and, as a result, can be more volatile than the performance of more broadly-diversified funds. The price of stocks in the utilities sector can be very volatile due to supply and/or demand for services or fuel, financing costs, conservation efforts, the negative impact of regulation, and other factors.

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:

Bar Chart

Best Quarter:     21.12% (Quarter ended 6/30/2009)

Worst Quarter:   -24.50% (Quarter ended 9/30/2008)

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

Average Annual Total Returns (Utilities Trust)
1 Year
5 Years
10 Years
Inception Date
Series I
13.65% 2.54% 14.42% Apr. 30, 2001
Series II
13.36% 2.34% 14.20% Jan. 28, 2002
NAV
13.64% 2.59% 14.46% Apr. 29, 2005
S&P 500 Index
16.00% 1.66% 7.10% Apr. 30, 2001
S&P Utilities Sector Index
1.31% 1.03% 10.79% Apr. 30, 2001