Woman Sues Genworth Over LTCI Survivorship Benefit

The policy included care coordination services, a home care benefit, a respite care benefit, a caregiver training benefit equal to up to 20% of the monthly maximum and a bed reservation benefit equal to up to 60 policy days per year.

The international coverage benefit was equal to up to 75% of the monthly maximum per calendar month for up to 48 calendar months.

The original annual premium amount was $2,610.

Nonforfeiture benefit: Insurers and insurance regulators developed the nonforfeiture benefit system to help consumers who pay for life insurance coverage or other coverage for many years and then are unable or unwilling to keep making the payments.

A nonforfeiture benefit provision provides some coverage for a policy owner that stops making the premium payments or pays less than the full premium amount.

The suit: Rosemary Loring asserts in her suit that her husband's 2005 LTCI policy was never on nonforfeiture benefit status because the contingent nonforfeiture was separate from an ordinary nonforfeiture benefit.

An ordinary nonforfeiture benefit provision would apply only if the policy owner simply stopped making the payments, and the policy itself distinguished between a contingent nonforfeiture benefit and an ordinary nonforfeiture benefit in a definition included in the policy, Loring says.

"No document exists that indicates that electing the contingent nonforfeiture benefit would cause a forfeiture of the survivorship benefit," according to the complaint. "Plaintiff was never provided notice of the change of her husband's policy nor an opportunity to accept or reject a material alteration to the coverage she continued to pay a premium for."

In 2023, after a Genworth resolved a class-action suit, Rosemary Long received a new option to convert both her policy and her husband's policy to paid-up benefit status, and that notice indicated that electing paid-up status would end survivorship rights.

Rosemary Long is asking the court to provide a declaratory judgment that the election of a contingent nonforfeiture benefit is different from continuing coverage under a nonforfeiture benefit and that the survivorship benefit provision is still in effect.

She has accused Genworth Life of bad faith, fraud violation of state unfair trade practices and consumer protection laws and breach of fiduciary duty.

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