Nationwide Maps Consumers' Long-Term Care Insurance Confusion

By Allison Bell

News August 01, 2023 at 03:13 PM

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A Nationwide research arm has looked closely at an old market research question: Why is the long-term care insurance ownership level reported by many U.S. consumers so high?

The answer: Many consumers who take the surveys have no idea what "long-term care insurance" is.

The Nationwide Retirement Institute provided data supporting that conclusion in a summary of the results of a recent survey of 1,439 U.S. adults ages 25 and older. Nationwide sponsored the project, and LIMRA and LOMA ran the survey.

Originally, 18% of the participants said they had long-term care insurance, but, after the survey administration system defined the term, only 3% of the participants said they were certain they had LTCI coverage. Most of the rest admitted that they had confused LTCI coverage with disability insurance or health insurance.

What It Means

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners has reported that about 6.3 million Americans have private long-term care insurance.

Some surveys have shown that more than 10% of U.S. adults claim to have LTCI coverage.

The new Nationwide survey results confirm what many financial professionals have said all along: Typical consumers know too little about LTCI coverage to answer survey questions about the topic in an informed way.

The Opportunity

The Nationwide Retirement Institute noted that many of the survey participants who turned out not to have long-term care benefits wanted to close that coverage gap: 85% indicated that they would like to buy LTCI coverage.

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