Looking forward, LTC insurance is more secure and reliable than ever.CLICK HERE to read my new article on why LTC insurance remains a valuable insurance product with a future that should be much more stable than in the past.
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Here is a link to an excellent article from Forbes.com that provides valuable, even critical, context to any discussion of long-term care planning and funding your plan with LTC insurance. In many ways a recent Wall Street Journal article simply re-packages old news in a new emotional wrapper since LTC insurance rate increases have been under way across the industry for more than 10 years. It also gets a couple of very important things wrong - including the fact that there are many options for dealing with a rate increase other than just walking away from the coverage. "The WSJ piece essentially falls into the 'bad news sells' category of reporting ... Its “Woe is me!” theme actually pushes people away from doing quality long-term care planning. Instead of lamenting past missteps, the article could have emphasized some of the new techniques for building effective and sustainable solutions to the budding long-term care crisis." UNUM announced its latest in-force premium increase on two of its LTC insurance blocks of business impacting policyholders in 21 states. (MO & IL have not yet approved this increase.)
Inflation option to avoid the increase:Like any LTC insurance policy, the premium can be reduced by reducing benefits, for example, changing from a "Lifetime" benefit period to 6-years, or from 6-years to 3 years; policyholders can also reduce the amount of coverage per month. UNUM is offering a special option with this increase:
ComfortLTC recommends most policyholders should elect the reduced, 3% inflation option.If your health is in decline and you may file a claim soon, you may want to consider accepting the full increase. You are not affected if:
There are state differences (a lower approved increase percentage, or increases spread out over three years). The states currently impacted are:
AK, AZ, CO, IA, KS, MI, NC, NJ, NV, NY, OH, OK, OR, SC, SD, TN, TX, UT, WI, WV, WY Call your agent; or contact us for a personalized policy review and recommendation. |
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