Four former top government officials—two Democrats and two Republicans—have proposed a new plan aimed at improving the nation’s system for financing long-term care. Their package of ideas is detailed but relatively modest. However, by agreeing to a consensus plan, the officials have taken a major step in raising the profile of the critical issue of long-term care financing. The group [...]
The state of Hawaii is about to have a fascinating debate over whether to create a first-in-the-nation universal long-term care insurance program. The benefit would be modest—about $70-per-day for a year-- but it would be available to all long-term residents of the state and be funded through a broad-based tax. The measure will be introduced by Senate Commerce, Consumer [...]
Can the US do a better job of designing long-term care insurance? The answer is yes, according to two important new studies. With hard work and political will, we can develop better ways to help pay the enormous cost of long-term supports and services. The new research is a big step towards improved financing of these services. It did not find a “magic bullet.” But [...]
A newly-released survey shows just how conflicted Americans are about long-term care insurance. And how unrealistic they are about how much long-term care costs and how much insurance they can buy for what they are willing to spend. The survey, completed in 2014 by the consulting firm RTI International and the survey research firm GfK Research for the US Department [...]
Yesterday, the CEO of the nation’s largest long-term care insurance company, Genworth, acknowledged the US needs a new model of LTC insurance that includes some government role. Tom McInerney estimated that between half and two-thirds of Americans simply cannot afford to buy insurance in the traditional private market. A 50-something can expect to pay an average of $2,500-$3,000-a-year for a typical [...]
I recently returned from a few days at the long-term care insurance industry’s national conference, held this year in Colorado Springs. The organizers asked me to participate in a panel discussion on policy solutions to the challenges of financing long-term supports and services. But I also had an opportunity to listen to what insurance company executives, brokers, and actuaries had [...]
It is no secret that fewer consumers are buying long-term care insurance—annual sales are only about one-third of what they were a decade ago. But it turns out that those who are still buying are purchasing less coverage than ever, even though long-term care costs are rising. When industry leader Genworth Financial Inc., which sold about one-third all traditional LTC [...]
Should you buy inflation protection for long-term care insurance? Absolutely. In fact, if you don’t think you can afford that extra coverage, you should probably rethink whether you should buy the insurance at all. The issue of inflation protection was just one of the subjects that I, along with financial adviser Michael Kitces and insurance industry spokesman Jesse Slome, discussed [...]
Should young people self-insure against the risk of needing long-term care later in life, or should they buy insurance? In a Feb 13 Wall Street Journal commentary (behind a pay wall), Manisha Thakor, chief executive of Santa Fe, N.M.- based MoneyZen Wealth Management LLC, argued they should self-insure. “By taking the money you would have put in long-term-care premiums and [...]
After Thomas J. McInerney took the helm of insurance giant Genworth Financial Inc. last January, he ordered an intensive review of the firm’s long-term care insurance business. Genworth was one of the biggest players in the market, but the industry was struggling and investors unhappy. In an exclusive interview, McInerney tells Caring for Our Parents about his decision to stay [...]