“LTC insurance industry is ‘imploding’ as new numbers show chasm in costs for private plans,” by Marty Stempniak, McKnight’s LTC News

“While long-term care insurance options continue to diminish, a new industry report finds a huge spread in costs for virtually identical coverage plans. The American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance on Monday released its 2019 price index. It notes that a couple in their mid-50s purchasing such coverage can expect to pay an average annual premium of about $3,000 for combined benefits of $770,000, if they start needing care at age 85. Director Jesse Slome noted the gap between the lowest and highest cost for virtually identical coverage was as high as 243% for 55-year-olds.”

LTC Comment (from Stephen A. Moses, President, Center for Long-Term Care Reform):

Here’s a classic example of how poor reporting snowballs. The immediately previous LTC Clipping we sent you featured a slanted anti-LTCI article in which the word “imploded” appeared, inappropriately we explained. In this latest article, the author borrows that pejorative term for his title slanting this piece negative also, when it actually provides good news about the extent and affordability of LTCI. Exasperating, but nothing new. Media bias against private LTCI goes back to the 1980s with body blows landing from the likes of Consumer Reports, the New York Times, and even the Wall Street Journal, often as industry conferences were meeting. It’s a cross we’ll bear until the world wakes up, realizes LTCI is good, and directs richly deserved criticism toward the failing government programs that have hampered private insurance products for decades.