“Another Shock To The Long-Term Care Insurance Industry”, by Howard Gleckman, Forbes “Last week, I attended the industry’s annual conference in Chicago. Many programs focused on finding better ways to measure risk and others were about dementia—the single biggest uncertainty for both carriers and consumers. Roughly half of all long-term care insurance claims come from policyholders with Alzheimer’s and other dementias. Other sessions discussed public options for long-term care coverage, such as pending legislation in Washington State to create a social insurance benefit of $36,500. Many insurance executives who had long criticized public programs such as Washington’s, now see it as an
Read More

“Reverse Mortgage: Types and Examples”, by Eric Reed, The Street “There are two ways to look at a reverse mortgage. First: Only get a reverse mortgage if you absolutely have to. Doing so will encumber a home you should own outright, limiting your ability to move or pass the home on to your family. Second: A reverse mortgage lets you use your home as a semi-liquid investment property. For a fee you can access the cash value of your house without having to sell it, allowing you to both tap it as a financial resource and still live there. Here’s what
Read More

“5 Medicare Advantage Sample Size LTC Benefits Reactions”, by Allison Bell, ThinkAdvisor “Medicare Advantage program managers abruptly encouraged insurers to jam a few non-medical ‘supplemental benefits’ into their benefits packages for 2019. Some insurers added the kinds of benefits that might be covered by a short-term care insurance or long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy, such as adult day care services, homemaker services, and support for caregivers. Officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services (CMS) recently put more fleshed-out rules for ‘chronic care’ benefits in a draft version of a bidding document for the 2020 Medicare Advantage program. Insurance company
Read More