Genworth Financial expects to get needed approvals to resume selling new long-term care insurance in 25 to 35 states in 2025, Tom McInerney, the CEO, said Thursday during a conference call with securities analysts.
Genworth has completed the process of submitting the initial product filing to the Interstate Insurance Product Regulation Commission, McInerney said.
The commission helps insurers submit product applications to dozens of state insurance regulators simultaneously.
"There is a significant unmet demand in the market for new and improved LTC funding products," McInerney said. "We are excited by our plan to reenter the market."
What it means: A revival in the U.S. private long-term care insurance market may be coming too late to do much for older baby boomers. But it could help younger boomers and members of later generations plan for the possibility that they might need home care or facility care later in life.
The backdrop: Genworth helped create the modern long-term care insurance market but suspended active marketing of coverage in 2019, after severe problems with pricing assumptions surfaced.
The company has been working to get regulator approvals for LTCI rate increases that will generate about $33 billion in additional premium revenue, and it has received approvals for increases that should generate about $30 billion of that extra revenue.
Genworth has said it is operating the subsidiaries that wrote its in-force LTCI policies on a stand-alone basis, without making additional capital contributions to the subsidiaries or taking cash out.
Genworth has also worked to improve its finances by putting its private mortgage insurance business, Enact, in a separate company and selling stock in it to outside investors.
Strong cash flow from Enact and the high value of Enact's stock have increased Genworth's financial flexibility, McInerney said.
CareScout: Genworth started to return to the long-term care market by forming a CareScout, a company that is developing and managing a long-term care provider network.
