Douglas Meyer (Photo: Allison Bell/ALM)
An insurance rating analyst has an idea for what investors — and other people, including insurance agents and brokers — could do to get some of the information that long-term care insurance (LTCI) issuers are giving state insurance regulators: Ask the issuers the same questions the regulators are asking.
Douglas Meyer, a managing director at Fitch Ratings, talked about that idea Tuesday, at an insurance conference, in New York, that was organized by Fitch.
Many of the people in the audience were institutional investors.
A multi-state team of state insurance regulators is now asking LTCI issuers to give detailed information about their LTCI operations in Actuarial Guideline 51, to help the regulators understand how the issuers' overall books of LTCI business are doing.
States are keeping the AG 51 filings confidential, Meyer said.
But nothing can stop the investors from getting a copy of AG 51 and asking insurance company executives questions based on those guidelines, Meyer said.
The August Analysis
Meyer was moderating a conference session on the health of LTCI issuers.
The issuers have written policies promising access to hundreds of billions of dollars in LTCI coverage to millions of people. Some analysts have predicted that the insurers will need
Anthony Beato and other Fitch analysts concluded, in a report issued in August, that some issuers appear to have more and better capital supporting their LTCI obligations than others do.
Beato said analyzing issuers' performance is complicated, partly because issuers sold most of the LTCI policies in force years ago, when the consumers were much younger. Up till now, he said, claim volume has been relatively light.
