Talk:Long-term care insurance

Long-term Care Insurance Partnership Program

I added a sentence and reference about the number of states that have an active partnership program as of October 2008. Legislative groupie (talk) 20:21, 26 March 2009 (UTC)

Risk

Dear Mr. Shadowe, The element of risk is the increased risk of need for long term care insurance, the product; not necessarily the increased needing for the contract. One may choose NOT to purchase one (if that need does not exist). Somewhat similar to an automobile insurance contract, the risk of need is 100% in my homestate of South Carolina when one buys a car. So, I'm not certain if your edits changed the meaning here. Paradigmbuff 19:49, Nov 24, 2004 (UTC)

External link to http://guidetolongtermcare.com

I fail to see that the external link to guidetolongtermcare.com is inappropriate since it is an informational website and not commerical as Finlay McWalter claims. 21:12, 9 October 2006 (UTC)Muspiel

I'm not the person who removed the link, but I can see how it could be a matter of contraversy, since that site also provides quotes for (that is, sells) long-term care insurance. Vectro 18:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

External link to http://ltctree.com/Long-term%20Care.htm

I've been in the long term care industry for 10 years and my info keeps getting erased. What gives?? http://ltctree.com/Long-Term%20Care.htm {{u nsigned|Lorela1942|02:46, 16 February 2007}}

That site appears to primarily exist to sell long-term care insurance contracts. Recall that Wikipedia is not a collection of external links. Don't add links to wikipedia to promote your site; if it provides good information, others will add it for you. Vectro 18:31, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

It's called Conflict of Interest. --THE FOUNDERS INTENT ^PRAISE 11:42, 26 April 2011 (UTC)

External link to http://longtermcare.genworth.com/comweb/pdfs/long_term_care/Cost_Of_Care_Survey.pdf "Cost of Long Term Care"

This is a much-cited work in the LTCI industry and a foundational work in the LTCI discussions going on in DC. It does not promote products and is not a spam link. It should be re-instated. LifeWeb 5:30, 23 February 2007

I agree, and will reinstate the link. Vectro 19:16, 25 February 2007 (UTC)

Vandalism

I've removed vandalism which I noticed in reading the article. See history. Hope that I haven't messed up formatting. BobShair 18:32, 11 July 2007 (UTC)

Consumer Reports Report

http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/money/insurance/longterm-care-insurance-1103/overview/

I am a financial advisor with LPL Financial, and an independent contractor with many LTCI companies. First let me say that this report can be extremely misleading to the general public. I have dealt with many clients canceling their LTCI after reading this policy. The fact is, this 2003 report does not reflect then current state of LTCI, at least for the particular policies that I have written for my clients, so I would like to caution anyone who reads this report. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Geoffvf (talk • contribs) 03:56, 2 April 2008 (UTC)

Proposed Revisions to LTCI article

Long term care insurance is a contingent deferred annuity. Recognizing that LTCI is a contingent deferred annuity is, however, just the beginning of a proper conceptual understanding because it is an annuity with some very important additional complicating factors. These policies are: 1) unilaterally re-pricable, 2) inadequately disclosed, 3) non-transferable, 4) typically non-participating, and 5) prohibit a consumer from bargaining for a discount.

Consumers need to understand this conceptual framework in order not to buy the product being virtually ignorant or blind of its financial mechanics. Regarding LTCI's unilateral re-pricing, please note that it does require regulator approval for an entire class of policyholders (and is not done on an individual basis), but nonetheless there have been extraordinary premium increases (often mutliple increases of 20-40%) on these policies. These policies are inadequately disclosed because until a consumer understands that LTCI is fundamentally an annuity product, but one which they know virtually nothing about its investment operations (i.e., its expected rate of return, the insurer's investment management costs, etc.), then they are buying it blind. The fact that these products are typically non-participating is a fundamental limitation, given that interest rates will of course vary significantly over the likely 30+ years that a policyholder might be insured. Furthermore, given that these policies are non-transferable, consumers have basically been hoodwinked into buying many of these products. And I use the word hoodwinked, mindful of wiki rules to avoid harsh criticism, but there is no other way to describe a product which: 1) has been built on undisclosed assumptions regarding the lapse rate on these policies, 2) consumers have been provided no information regarding this material assumption, and when 3) the potential impact upon premium increases when actual lapse rates are less than the insurer assumed can be enormous. Non-transferable contracts that have been inadequately disclosed and yet on which the insurer can essentially unilaterally increase the premiums is a recipe for a product that exploits consumers.

At present, hedge fund investor - who are by definition sophisticated individuals, in contrast with the ordinary individuals to whom LTCI is marketed - have received better disclosure than LTCI policyholders. With the typical hedge fund, an investor pays 2% a year and 20% of gain to the hedge fund manager. With LTCI, many of the products have been initially brought to market with an expectation/plan to pay out to policyholders less than 70% of the actuarial value of premiums received.

Many LTCI policies should have never been approved for sale to the public. Before LTCI can play a major role in the average American's financial planning security plans, there need to be major changes in this product. Breadwinner Brian (talk) 16:54, 26 March 2012 (UTC)

Recent improvements

@NewYorkActuary: In regards to you reverting my recent activity:

1. The language used almost universally is "severe cognitive impairment" not "memory loss". See [1] vs. [2]. That's not to say "memory loss" is incorrect but "severe cognitive impairment" is more accurate.
2. Premiums are not "returned in the form of a death benefit". There is just a death benefit paid out. "Returned in the form of a death benefit" sounds like insureds get to pass 100% of premiums paid to beneficiaries, which isnt the case.

I look forward to discussing. Meatsgains (talk) 15:57, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Meatgains: Thanks for discussing this. Regarding the first point, I agree that "severe cognitive impairment" is the technical term that is used in virtually every discussion of these types of policies. My reversion was motivated by the fact that the general reader probably doesn't know what it means and that a simpler description would be more helpful. But I would have been just as happy if the term had been blue-linked to an article that defined the term. There wasn't one, but now there is. I've cobbled together the start of an article on the condition and would welcome any input that you might have on it. In the article here, I've reverted my reversion, the only change being to blue-link the term.

As for the second point, the issues might be a bit more complex. Frankly, I don't think either one of us got it quite right. To me, a "return of premium" feature very much means that the insured has been led to expect that the unused portion of the premium will be "returned" in the form of a death benefit. However, I failed to notice that the statement was being made in the context of Hybrid policies, whereas the feature first arose under the Traditional policies. So, I've expanded the discussion of Traditional policies to include a referenced mention of the feature. But as for mentioning it in the context of Hybrid policies, that's where things get a bit complicated. The source being used to back up the statement was the web site of a firm that was trying to sell a particular variation of Hybrid policies and it seemed (to me) misleading to suggest that the notion of "unused" premiums applies to all varieties of Hybrid policies. And so, I removed any mention of it, pending a decision on whether we really want to be going into intricate details of these policies.

You might also notice that I removed the source that originally appeared here (i.e., the one I mentioned in the previous paragraph). I personally dislike citing particular sales sites for general information and I'm confident that non-promotional sources can be found for this section of the article. If you choose to restore the cite, I'll not edit war with you. But I do think that, between the two of us, we can come up with something more authoritative.

Thanks again for the discussion. I look forward to your comments. NewYorkActuary (talk) 23:23, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

@Meatsgains: Re-pinging, this time with correct user name. NewYorkActuary (talk) 23:24, 20 September 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the thorough response! I can see how the common reader would not necessarily know what a "severe cognitive impairment" consists of so nice work on creating that page and adding a wikilink. I'm actually surprised there wasn't already a page for the subject come to think of it. When I get a chance I'll be more than happy to review and expand.

And in response to the second point, I agree with you. I think its best left out for the time being since each hybrid product is different and can be designed different. Death benefit options vary and not all hybrid LTC policies pay out "unused" premiums - its as you suggested "misleading". In the next few days, I'm going to work towards outlining specific types of policies, death benefit options, return of premium options, and funding options and add independent reliable sources, not from websites/brokers selling product. Meatsgains (talk) 03:57, 21 September 2017 (UTC)

2017 monthly LTC costs

Would it be worth including Genworth's 2017 study showing monthly national median costs for LTC? I recently came across a Forbes article that released these numbers, which may or my not improve the page. Meatsgains (talk) 03:12, 9 November 2017 (UTC)

@NewYorkActuary: Thoughts? Meatsgains (talk) 02:25, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

@Meatsgains: Thanks for asking. I do see a few problems with that source. First, I am generally uneasy about sourcing basic facts about an industry to a particular company in that industry, because it just looks too promotional. This is especially true for the US insurance industry, for which the basic facts can almost always be equally-well sourced to non-commercial entities. And that's the case here. The federal government's Administration on Aging (part of the Department of Health and Human Services) publishes these average costs. They can be seen, updated as of last month, at https://longtermcare.acl.gov/costs-how-to-pay/costs-of-care.html . If there really is a need to add this information to the article, then the government source is the one that should be used.

But is it really necessary to add it here? This is the article on insurance of long-term care, and these figures are not addressing the cost of the insurance. Instead, they are addressing the cost of the underlying need (not at all the same thing). The DHHS figures would be better-placed in the article on Long-term care, not the article here.

And finally, there something odd about the Forbes article. It's headline includes the "scare" number $2 million as the cost for caring for one parent. But that figure isn't derived from the Genworth study. It's based on a single case study from the article author's new book. There's no reason to believe that this is a typical number and there's something misleading about using an atypical number in the headline. Plus, when the article's author mentions her new book, it is followed by a link to a site where you can buy that book. And so, not only is the source being used to reference numbers published by a particular insurance company, it's housed within an article written by someone trying to sell her new book.

In all, I don't think any of this belongs here. The government data might be of encyclopedic interest, but in the Long-term care article and not here.

I hope this was helpful. NewYorkActuary (talk) 21:45, 10 November 2017 (UTC)

Thanks for the feedback - you've made several good points. If the content warrants inclusion, which at this point I don't think it does, it should be sourced to the recent costs that the Department of Health and Human Services published. The stats published by an insurance carrier (Genworth) come off as a bit promotional. Furthermore, you are right, the page is about LTC insurance and not necessarily the cost of care. Thanks again! Meatsgains (talk) 02:11, 15 November 2017 (UTC)

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