I have several weeks of blogging material on my plate, but the e-mails just keep coming.
Would you like to ask a long-term care expert the hard questions about long-term care insurance? Tell me what issues you want to raise.
Early next week I'm interviewing an executive of one of the nation's largest long-term care marketing organizations. This exec has several decades of experience and is a frequent national speaker/writer on the industry's issues. I'd like to claim that I tracked them down, or that The-Military-Guide.com popped up on their radar, but the reality is that a PR firm e-mailed me-- perhaps along with a couple hundred other bloggers. For all I know they've been lurking or even posting here for years.
Regardless of how opportunity knocked on my door, here's a rare chance to interrogate an expert who's reaching out. Here's what they said:
What questions do you want me to ask?
Would you like to ask a long-term care expert the hard questions about long-term care insurance? Tell me what issues you want to raise.
Early next week I'm interviewing an executive of one of the nation's largest long-term care marketing organizations. This exec has several decades of experience and is a frequent national speaker/writer on the industry's issues. I'd like to claim that I tracked them down, or that The-Military-Guide.com popped up on their radar, but the reality is that a PR firm e-mailed me-- perhaps along with a couple hundred other bloggers. For all I know they've been lurking or even posting here for years.
Regardless of how opportunity knocked on my door, here's a rare chance to interrogate an expert who's reaching out. Here's what they said:
I think they want to give us bloggers a chance to promulgate their "LTC 101" material, but I'm going to take a different perspective. Here's how I responded, and now we're setting up an interview time:As more and more baby boomers enter their retirement years, there are new financial concerns they need to consider as they plan the rest of their lives. One that’s often overlooked is long-term care. Nearly 70% of persons over 65 will require some form of long term care, and with 10,000 persons turning 65 every day over the next 19 years, this is becoming an increasingly important issue.
The reality is that the cost of long-term care continues to rise and it’s important that people have a sustainable plan in place to protect their assets and to avoid burdening their loved ones financially should they need care. And the earlier they start planning the better.
I wanted to reach out to you to gauge your interest in speaking with [...] to discuss the current state of the long-term care industry, and the important role that long-term care insurance can play in a person’s financial plans:
• Options available to consumers in an environment where the cost of care is rising
• How consumers can save on long-term care insurance premiums
• Questions consumers need to be asking themselves when purchasing a long-term care policy
• Creative plans available in the market to meet individual needs overtime
I think that there are already plenty of resources for people to research the basics of long-term care insurance. The most frequent questions from my military readers are when to purchase it and whether
the inflation rider is worth the expense. By "when" I don't just mean "at what age"-- I also mean "when will the industry have a policy whose premiums and guarantees we can trust?".
Frankly the industry has destroyed its credibility by misjudging the pricing of its products and the return on its investments. When a market leader like John Hancock uses payment processes straight out of the 1980s, and when other large firms are pulling out of the Federal Long-Term Care Insurance Program... self-insurance seems like the better alternative to the risks of rising premiums and bankrupt
promises.
What questions do you want me to ask?