athena53
Give me a museum and I'll fill it. (Picasso) Give me a forum ...
- Joined
- May 11, 2014
- Messages
- 7,377
I am a little more cynical about the insurance companies than you. They have a lot of bean counters who do nothing but run numbers on this stuff. I would have a hard time believing that they don't know exactly what they are doing. I think they probably have some great spin doctors in the advertising department too. I don't think they lump the younger customers in with the older customers, but start new policy groups on a regular basis. The older policy groups have to self-sustain their policy plus a profit and their costs rise to make that happen. I don't have any references, just my humble opinion.
I'm a retired actuary but didn't work in the LTC field. The problem is that the "bean counters" (my actuarial counterparts in LTC) priced the product when there wasn't a lot of data around so they had to make assumptions about lapse rates, mortality, likelihood of entering LTC, duration of LTC, rates of return, etc. 30 years ahead. There were a lot of general population statistics that couldn't be used on their own because of "self-selection" (people who buy the product expect to live a long time and need LTC) and the fact that the very old in nursing homes probably live longer than the very old in similar condition trying to live at home because the ones in LTC are getting more care. So, yeah, it was guesswork. Throw in the wish to make the pricing attractive and there may have been a little too much optimism, too.
I can tell you that when GE sold most of its insurance-related businesses in 2006, the acquiring company, a well-regarded Swiss company, wanted nothing to do with Genpact!