LTC insurance? Other options?

[mathjak107]

i would not consider a plan that was not a state partnership plan with perks . i could not give a rats butt about the 3 years insurance coverage i am paying for . i am really interested in the benefits after those 3 years are up .

we have 100% total asset protection , total income protection for the stay at home spouse . we have no look back , no asset spend downs, no irrevocable trusts needed .

as long as we pick a private home that will take medicaid 3 years later we are good to go . extended medicaid then pays the bills .

that is where the real value is . to have to first start with trusts and cut the stay at home spouse off from control of the assets and worse to live on an amount of income that represent impoverishment in nyc was not something i would want to do . just got our premium renewal last week and not a penny increase .

 

[misanman]

Saw this note this morning:

Genworth Financial (NYSE:GNW) has agreed to sell itself to China Oceanwide (OTC:HHRBF). That works out to $5.43 per share in cash, a puny 4.2% premium to Friday's close, but comes as Genworth announces more troubles with its long-term care business and an after-tax charge in Q3 of $275M-$325M. BTIG's Mark Palmer notes GNW would surely today have traded sharply lower than its most recent price of $5.21 were it not for the weekend sale. A conference call is set for 8:00 AM ET.

 

[athena53]

Saw this note this morning:

Wow. That's a biggie. A guy at our church sells a lot of Their LTC policies. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, although there are plenty of insurance companies in the US with foreign owners.

 

[Senator]

I am self-insuring. If I am incapacitated forever, who need the money. If I am of sound mind, and get committed to a home, I am going to be the most party animal the world has ever seen.

 

[MRG]

Wow. That's a biggie. A guy at our church sells a lot of Their LTC policies. It will be interesting to see how this plays out, although there are plenty of insurance companies in the US with foreign owners.

Many..

I am sometimes surprised of the "inbreeding of the industry" . Some of these multinational insurance companies were called clients when I was employed.

One observation is they all had local flavor. I'm guessing it's different to say your effed in South Africa than in Iowa.

 

[RobbieB]

Yup Genworth put me through the mill with all the paperwork requests and they never paid a dime.

 

[mathjak107]

the funny thing is you hear sporadic story's about them not paying a dime , yet all are in trouble pricing these plans because they are paying out more then anticipated .

the stories vs the numbers do not add up .

 

[misanman]

the funny thing is you hear sporadic story's about them not paying a dime , yet all are in trouble pricing these plans because they are paying out more then anticipated .

the stories vs the numbers do not add up .

Makes sense to me:

(1) the policies were priced too cheaply
(2) policy holders are trying to extract what they're owed for LTC
(3) the insurance companies are trying to stem their losses by resisting payment of claims

 

[athena53]

Makes sense to me:

(1) the policies were priced too cheaply
(2) policy holders are trying to extract what they're owed for LTC
(3) the insurance companies are trying to stem their losses by resisting payment of claims

I headed over to an actuarial discussion board once I saw the news on the Genworth acquisition and the general opinion is that the policies were way underpriced. One major element was assumptions on lapse rates- lapses are good from the company point of view because they pay premiums for years then stop- so the company never had to pay claims. In the beginning, not having any history, they used lapse rates from disability insurance, which turned out to be too high (and thus over-optimistic).

Another was interest rates. Pricing included assumptions about what rates of return the company would make when they invested the assets underlying the reserves (money set aside from collected premiums that will eventually be needed to pay claims). They rates may have been reasonable at the time of pricing, but in this investment market they turned out to be too high- another over-optimistic aspect of pricing.