Who has long term care insurance?

[timo2]

My LTC insurance company, Transamerica, sent out a chatty note with their annual privacy notice today that, at the very end, dropped one sentence of news that they were discontinuing selling "standalone long term care insurance." Now, this will not affect my existing policy (supposedly), but it sure seems that options are narrowing for long term care for people. Other companies are exiting the market too.

They want to herd everybody into these "hybrid" life insurance policies, but that would not make any sense for a single person with no need to leave money to heirs. As far as I could tell, a standard LTC policy offered more bang for the buck - IF one used it, and I do understand that IF. I just thought of it as insurance.

Anyway, I do wonder what people in my situation - not enough money to self-insure, but enough to pay for a policy offering upgraded options for LTC planning - will do when these policies become totally unavailable?

Edit: PS: They reference "post-Covid" in their communication. I wonder how many organizations seized the opportunity to reevaluate their business models. Covid tore through nursing homes and presumably reduced the number of LTC care beneficiaries, as well as making nursing homes more expensive and less attractive an option for potential clients. Not sure how that would change their calculations, but it probably did.

DW's LTC policy is with CNA. They did this same 'discontinue' routine for stand alone policies quite a few years back. At that time they still had group policies, but stopped even those a few years ago. Everything was been fine with her plan until last year when they put the screws to her to reduce the 'unlimited' term to a finite duration. I can't say that wasn't expected. So we dropped her to a five year plan, which is fine, as she is 63 now. The unlimited plan did it's job, providing insurance coverage in her younger years in case of a catastrophic car accident or some such thing. One takeaway from this communication from CNA is they have not forgotten DW has a legacy policy with them. When it comes time to collect, who knows?

I imagine the long-haul COVID is a whole new market disruptor for the LTC companies.

I did previously notice that there are other CNA LTC policy holders on this forum. I wonder what their experience with their legacy polices are?

 

[REWahoo]

I did previously notice that there are other CNA LTC policy holders on this forum. I wonder what their experience with their legacy polices are?

Here's my long CNA story "summarized" in a thread I kept updated for 10 years.

LTC insurance premium "surprise"

Fast forward to this post to see where I ended up.

 

[RetiredHappy]

We both have LTCI, mine is paid as a monthly premium of $97. My Genworth policy currently covers $8,555 per month, $513K lifetime and both continue to grow at 3% compound. 90-day waiting period. Full coveage for home care and facility care. I have it for 13 years and have not experienced a premium increase to date. Touch wood.

My husband's is a hybrid policy through Lincoln Moneyguard but when I looked at some of the numbers posted above, his is not such a great deal. Single premium of $100K, life insurance amount started at $140K and will drop to $110K after a few years and will pay out if home care does not fully utilize the life insurance amount. Home care is now paying about $5K a month with a lifetime of about $450K, and they grow a 3% compound. I think this one has 30-day waiting period or no waiting period. Full coverage for home care and facility care.

We could have self-insured but the mindset of spending other insurers' money instead of ours is very important for when we need care. We want to make sure we get care rather than delay because we don't want to spend our own money.

 

[street]

Yep we do. 134$ a month for two, no limit on years, 5900$ and month, and other perks but that is it in a nut shell. I have it with AFLAC which has stopped selling policies 10 to 15 years ago. My folks had a policy with them and both needed to collect on their LTC and AFLAC was top notch to work with and no hassles.

 

[skyking1]

We don't, and the spitball quote that we got last night in passing was too much for too little.
For us this ship has sailed and we will have to self insure.

 

[nwsteve]

Our LTC "policy" is in use as part of the benefits of living in a Type A CCRC. At least we get some current benefits from our monthly payments. Moved in 4/19, and the Covid experience has added to our comfort regarding the move.

 

[Act2]

Dad had CNA LTCI. In 2020 he qualified to trigger it as his dementia came to require sufficient assistance/supervision. He probably would have qualified some months before but he was already living in a great CCRC (in their Assisted Living unit), and with Covid limiting in-person family visits I wasn’t aware of how much more assistance had become part of his day to day life. Just being in AL didn’t trigger his policy benefits because at first he didn’t need sufficient assistance in the covered categories to qualify for the LTC payments. Because of the policy’s 90 day qualification period, benefits did not start right away. He passed away earlier this year, and we did benefit from his LTC paying for much of the care for the last six months of his life. More than anything, I was grateful he lived in a well-run community and had amazing caregivers and lovely neighbors.

I have a legacy Prudential LTC policy that I got at work; my employer no longer has any LTC option for new hires.

 

[athena53]

Our LTC "policy" is in use as part of the benefits of living in a Type A CCRC. At least we get some current benefits from our monthly payments. Moved in 4/19, and the Covid experience has added to our comfort regarding the move.

This is about the only kind of protection I'd consider and I'd go 9over the finances with a fine-toothed comb to make sure they could keep their promises.

Other than that- no. I'm widowed so no scary scenario with one person in LTC and one at home. My assets are enough to pay a decent place indefinitely and most likely have some left over.

 

[easysurfer]

I went the hybrid route recently. One big premium and no more.

Had a a couple of traditional LTC plans in the past but couldn't get past the psychology of yearly premiums and then getting the letters saying I get to choose less coverage or premium increase.

Hopefully, when the time comes, my LTC insurance will allow me to die peacefully at home instead of in some scary place .

 

[4legsgood]

I don't have LTC insurance. I had a semi-bad experience with trying to get LTCI to cover my Dad's care. It was through a fireman's retirement benefit plan that self-insured. The people I dealt with were rude and picky about paying out. At one point I was told my Dad's pension was enough to cover cost of his care. So what? He had LTC coverage. Maybe the problem was I had to deal with people that didn't have that perk. It made me realize I don't have the stomach for such battles and I plan on doing what I can to not regret not having LTCI.

 

[athena53]

Some plans are designated as partnership policies with a state. It ties in with Medicaid.

This is what is on Oregon's website:

The purpose of the Oregon Long-Term Care Insurance Partnership program is to make the purchase of shorter term more comprehensive long-term care insurance meaningful by linking these special policies (called Partnership qualified policies) with Medicaid for those who continue to require care.

Partnership qualified policies must meet special requirements that can differ somewhat from state to state. Most states require Partnership policies to offer comprehensive benefits (cover institutional and home services), be Tax Qualified, provide certain specific consumer protections, and include state-specific provisions for inflation protection.

<snip>Partnership for Long Term Care Programs can be thought of as a Medicaid asset protection technique for healthy seniors who do not have an immediate need for long term care.

This sounds like a good idea but which party assumes the risk of the insurer becoming insolvent? It hasn't happened yet to my knowledge but it's not impossible.