Planning for Long-Term Care in America

Prudential exits individual LTCi business, maintains group products

The only thing constant in life…is change!

On March 7, Prudential announced that they are discontinuing sales of their individual long-term care insurance products.  They are continuing to sell to the group LTC insurance market.

While, this is not good news, it is indicative of what is going on in the financial services industry.  Record low interest rates and reserving requirements have made this business challenging for our carrier partners.  As a result, some carriers (MetLife, UNUM and now Prudential) have decided to focus on product lines that have a greater ROI.   While we are disappointed with this news, it does not change the fact that LTC planning is more important that ever before.  LTC insurance continues to be a viable product line and planning tool.

Please note that current policyholders will not be impacted by this announcement and Prudential will continue to accept new applications through March 30, 2012.

LTCI Partners has always taken pride in our diverse product portfolio.  In fact, Prudential accounted for roughly 10% of our overall sales in 2011.  Rest assured that we will be able to provide you and your clients with competitive products.  There are eight carriers that remain committed to LTC insurance…Prudential being one of them (for group LTC).  

Please read the attached announcement http://ltcipartners.typepad.com/carriernews/2012/03/prudential-ltci-news-march-7-2012.html and feel free to contract one of our sales consultants at Sales@LTCIPartners.com with any questions or concerns.

New John Hancock survey shows that most Americans consider LTC Insurance best way to plan for care, but concerns about affordability remains

John Hancock recently released the results of a consumer survey on long-term care planning.  The findings show many people know it is important to plan for care, but think long-term care insurance might be too expensive and the current economy is holding them back.

You can download the survey summary below.

Download John Hancock LTC Survey

What do you think? 

CBS News Reports on Bankers Life LTC Claim problems

This investigative report by CBS discusses claim problems with Bankers Life and Casualty and unfortunately lumps in other carriers with a broad brush.  Our organization, LTCI Partners, has never distributed Banker's Life policies so we have not seen this issues.  We have also not seen these types of issues from other companies.  Have you had problems?  Comment below:

 

Upper Income Medicare Premiums to go up?

As fiscal pressure continues on Medicare, here is one of the ways to help curb costs.  Those clients with assets may be looking at ever increasing health care costs in retirement.

Can't raise taxes? Hike Medicare premiums instead

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press –

WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans may have found a way to squeeze more money out of well-to-do Americans without raising their taxes.

A year-end economic package expected to gain House approval Tuesday prescribes a Medicare premium increase for "high-income" beneficiaries. Although the bill faces a veto threat from the White House, that specific provision may turn out to have staying power.

Urban Institute Video on long-term care in the post CLASS world

Richard Johnson of the Urban Institute says that short of CLASS being modifed or mandated, private LTC solutions will have to play a role in LTC planning.  Take a look at this 4 minute video...

http://www.urban.org/publications/500260.html

CNN News story about the suspension of the CLASS plan

CNN Video on Monday, October 17th about the CLASS Act and planning for long-term care.  In 4:30 minutes, in discusses the issue in a nutshell - people don't realize Medicare doesn't pay for LTC and they need to plan! 

 

 

  

New poll suggests americans still unaware of who pays for long-term care costs

A recent NPR/Robert Wood Johnson Foundation/Harvard shows that a large percentage of people think that Medicare will pay for an extended nursing home stay (it won't) - and that many people think they own LTC Insurance when they don't.  Here are the poll results:

 
A link the complete article is below:

http://www.npr.org/2011/09/27/140680583/retirement-reality-not-as-rosy-as-expectations

What do you think?  How can people get the message out that Medicare does not pay for LTC costs?

 

If the CLASS act doesn't survive, how can the government encourage LTC planning?

With news that the CLASS act chief actuary has departed, the future of the program is open to debate.  For now, the CLASS plan is still law.

However, part of the CLASS plan includes funding for awareness of long-term care planning.  For those who don't realize it, the government has a National Clearinghouse for Long Term Care Insurance, found at www.longtermcare.gov.

Now, some in Congress are probably thinking of cutting funding to any type of planning awareness campaigns such as longtermcare.gov. 

Is that a good idea?  What role should the federal government have in promoting the planning of LTC needs?  Should it just be left to the states or is it an individual responsibility only?  Comment below!

New Republican report blasts the creation of the CLASS plan

As expected, the congressional republicans have released a report about the creation of the CLASS plan, the new voluntary long-term care program that is part of health care reform.  In the report are several e-mails related to early concerns about the sustainability of the program.

It looks like CLASS will need to be modified in order to survive - here is an article from POLITICO suggesting some modifications to the program -- http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0911/63642.html 

 Click the image below to download a copy of the report. 

 

What do you think?  Can the CLASS plan be salvaged?

Comprehensive Report and website compares long-term care by state

Three organizations - AARP, The Scan Foundation and the Commonwealth Fund have created "long-term care scorecard" that compares long-term care in all 50 states and Washington D.C.  The report can be found at http://www.longtermscorecard.org/ .  According to the report, the best state for providing long-term care is Minnesota and worst is Mississippi.

The scorecard uses a variety of indicators and methodology.  For example, one is based on the percentage of 40 year old's who own private long-term care insurance.  Here is a Bar Chart showing the states that have the highest penetration.  Not surprisingly, there is a correlation between Long-term care market penetration and the ranking of the states.

Of course, the data doesn't show what typeof long-term care policy someone has - the biggest state by percentage of ownership by far is Maine, with 30% of 40 year old's owning a policy. This might be due to the fact that it is the headquarters of Unum, a large writer of worksite long-term care insurance that tends to market to younger audiences with modest benefits.