ATTORNEY NEWSLETTER
Long Term Care Insurance
As America’s population continues to age, one type of insurance that has begun to seem very desirable is long term care insurance. This is designed to help seniors hedge their bets against the rising and potentially savings-draining cost of living in a retirement community, nursing home, or skilled nursing facility. The costs for these types of places can run above $10,000 monthly, an amount that few seniors on a fixed income can easily part with. Long term care insurance, such as that sold by many major insurers including Genworth and Transamerica, is intended to offset this cost by helping seniors pay for all or part of this expense.
However, long term care insurance has a mixed record, and many financial advisors warn that since the product is a risky one for companies to offer, they often find unscrupulous ways of making a profit. Some policies only cover very specific types of care, and refuse to pay for caretakers, physical therapy, or other costs that can arise for the elderly. Some California long term care insurance policies cover only very limited amounts, often only paying for a month or two of care before the policy is drained. Some are specifically designed to only cover certain lengths of time, and cut of when seniors need the insurance most.
Because these policies have not been as profitable for major insurance companies as they’d hoped, some companies are trying to find ways to bail on the contracts, or force customers to start paying much higher premiums. If a policyholder can no longer pay for their California long term care insurance and allows the policy to lapse, the insurance company can walk away from the policy and keep all of the premiums as pure profit.
It’s hard for individual consumers, especially the elderly, to constantly monitor and check their policies and coverage to try to find the hidden loopholes that insurance companies may put in these policies. In addition, the insurance broker who sells policies such as these doesn’t necessarily have an incentive to go out of their way to explain the downsides of the policies.
Some of the major insurance providers are:
- Aviva/Athene/Accordia Life Insurance Company
- Transamerica Life Insurance Company
- John Hancock Life Insurance Company
- Bankers Life Insurance and Casualty company
- Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company
- Midland Life Insurance Company
- North American Company for Life and Health Insurance
- Pacific Life Insurance Company
- Prudential Life Insurance Company
- Genworth Life Insurance Company
- ING USA Annuity and Life Insurance Company
- Lincoln Benefit Life Company
- Metlife/Metropolitan Life Insurance Company
- Unum Life Insurance Company of America
- Voya/Reliastar Life Insurance Company
Contact Us
If you or a loved one has purchased long term care insurance, or other products in California, contact the Evans Law Firm long term care 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.
