Long-term care insurance issuers should give financial advisors more help with serving clients affected by LTCI rate hikes, consumer representatives told state insurance regulators Friday.
Brenda Cude and Bonnie Burns reported to members of the Long-Term Care Insurance Task Force, an arm of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners on the findings of their interviews with 14 financial planners. All said they would prefer to see typical clients agree to pay the higher premium, rather than dropping the coverage or accepting any "reduced benefit option" proposals offered.
But "sources of expert help are limited," the consumer reps said, according to a presentation slidedeck included in an NAIC meeting packet. "Typically, the insurance agent who sold the policy isn't available, and other professionals can't get information from the insurance company."
Part of the solution could involve requiring insurers to let consumers authorize the release of policy-specific information to their chosen advisors, Cude and Burns said.
What It Means
If you have concerns about some of the LTCI premium increase notices your clients have been getting, you have company.
The History
Insurers began offering nursing home-only coverage in the United States in the 1960s, when long-term care costs were much lower than they are today.
Insurers began to expand sales dramatically in the 1980s and 1990s. They began to offer more generous policies, which covered home care and assisted living facility stays as well as nursing home care, and they encouraged consumers to buy 5% annual compound inflation protection.
They turned out to be overly optimistic about almost every factor used in pricing, including how faithfully consumers would keep coverage in place, how often insureds would use their coverage, and how much interest they would earn on the bond portfolios supporting the benefits obligations.
The result has been insurers sending policyholders waves of notices of premium increases of 100% or more.
Regulators have required issuers to exempt some very old policyholders from the increases, and they have started to encourage or require issuers to offer affected consumers reduced benefit options, such as the elimination of inflation protection features, to eliminate or cut the premium increases.
The NAIC, a group for state insurance regulators, has set up the Long-Term Care Insurance Task Force to address concerns about some issuers' solvency and concerns about the affected policyholders.
