ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
The Fate of Long Term Care Insurance
The Rise of LTC Insurance
Decades ago, companies began thinking about how to cash in on a massive demographic shift in the U.S. The average population in the United States was increasing, pushed on by an unprecedented wave of aging Boomers who had begun to coast past middle age and toward their 50s and 60s. Hospitals and nursing homes could expect more patients, insurance companies could expect more revenue from life insurance and annuities, and they anticipated that there would be money left over, if they could just figure out how to access it. One product that many insurance companies put their hope into was long term care insurance, a product that was deigned to help defray the cost of nursing care in exchange for a relatively small monthly payment. Unfortunately, things haven’t turned out exactly as planned.
Low Revenue, Rising Premiums
Insurance companies counted on Baby Boomers staying as fit and healthy as they had been up that that point, and, perhaps morbidly, anticipated that many of them would die sooner than they have. All-in-all, long term care insurance has been a bust for the companies that sold it, and many of them are getting out of the business entirely, like John Hancock, passing the costs on to their customers in the form of rapidly increasing premiums, eviscerating their policies by imposing strict limits on how they can be used, or all three.
Some policies limit how long policyholders can stay in a nursing home, or only kick in after they’ve stayed there for months. Some policies agree to pay only for certain very specific services, and may not work at certain levels of care. Some policies only pay for a small portion of the total cost of long term care. In addition, long term care insurance is notorious for the battles that seniors and their families have to fight to ensure that the company pays out.
What Long Term Care Insurance Policyholders Can Do
While the market for buying new long term care insurance policies is shrinking, with the exception of a few market leaders like Genworth, those who’ve already purchased long term care insurance may be wondering what they can do. Companies that are trying to rid themselves of the insurance may try to increase premiums to the point that they can get policyholders to abandon the insurance, leaving them with nothing. If you’ve purchased long term care insurance from companies like Genworth of John Hancock in the past, you should speak to a California long term care insurance attorney.
Contact Us
If you or a loved one has experienced long term care insurance fraud in California, contact the Evans Law Firm insurance fraud attorneys at (415) 441-8669, or by email at info@evanslaw.com. Our attorneys have experience with complex financial contracts and large insurance companies. We can help guide your case through a jury trial or toward an equitable settlement. We handle cases involving physical and financial elder abuse, qui tam and whistleblower law, nursing home abuse, whole life insurance and universal life insurance, and indexed, variable, and fixed annuities.
