LTC-Insured Population In New York State Rose 53% In 2 Years

The detailed data in the New York report could be helpful to brokers, agents and others selling LTC insurance, according to Philip Gallant, executive vice president of New York Long-Term Care Brokers Ltd., Clifton Park, N.Y.

Policy volume "is something customers are interested in knowing," Gallant says.

In some cases, Gallant says, customers may prefer to do business with an insurer that has placed large numbers of policies, on the assumption that a high-volume issuer will have staying power.

Howard Mattes, an Appleton, Wis., group LTC insurance broker who is also a marketing vice president at the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, Westlake Village, Calif., says information about the ages of the insureds could help group LTC brokers and enrollers explain LTC insurance to younger workers.

"It would help them see that other people in their age group are buying policies," Mattes says.

The New York department report reveals that two units of General Electric Capital Corp., Stamford, Conn., led the New York state LTC market in mid-2001 with 57,032 ordinary LTC insureds.

Other companies with more than 20,000 ordinary LTC insureds include units of John Hancock Financial Services Inc., Boston, with 36,337; MetLife Inc., New York, with 25,158; UnumProvident, with 22,277; and CNA Financial Corp., Chicago, with 20,170.

New York also has a New York State Long-Term Care Partnership program. The program relaxes eligibility requirements for the Medicaid nursing home assistance program for residents who buy qualified LTC policies.

Policies that met partnership program requirements covered 31,005 insureds in mid-2001, up from 24,723 policies two years earlier, according to the LTC report.

The report can be found at http://www.ins.state.ny.us/acrobat/ltcrpt01.pdf.

Reproduced from National Underwriter Life & Health/Financial Services Edition, January 21, 2002. Copyright 2002 by The National Underwriter Company in the serial publication. All rights reserved.Copyright in this article as an independent work may be held by the author.

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