The traditional long term care insurance arena which once flourished with over 100 underwriters 20 years ago is now down to 9 companies.

Mass Mutual has made the decision to stop offering for sale all traditional long term care insurance policies effective January 28th, 2021.

Mass Mutual has made the decision to leave the traditional LTC arena due to low traction with sales on its Signature Care 600 policy series released in 2019. This is not surprising news as I thoroughly discussed the non-competitive pricing of the Mass Mutual Signature Care 600 LTC insurance policy series when it was priced in 48 states in 2019. This policy was priced to be completely unbuyable in the marketplace so of course long term care insurance sales were not generated for Mass Mutual in 48 states.

For residents of California and New York however, this news is very important, however.

In California and New York, Mass Mutual still has available its Signature Care 500 Policy series which is 2013 pricing, and this Mass Mutual policy series still offers unisex rates. For female New York and California residents these LTC rates are (by far) the most competitive in the country for traditional LTC insurance.

So, if you live in 48 states you will not lose sleep over the fact that this policy is disappearing on January 28th.

If you are female and you live in California or New York, you should quickly move to apply for coverage if you have been considering traditional long term care insurance.
 
What does this mean for current Mass Mutual long term care insurance policy holders?
This news will not impact you whatsoever if you are a current Mass Mutual long term care insurance policyholder.

Your in-force policy will still continue to be serviced and administered by LifeCare Assurance, the third party administrator for Mass Mutual long term care insurance based in Woodland Hills, CA.
 
What does this news mean for Mass Mutual insurance brokers?
Mass Mutual will obviously have a huge fire sale in California and New York beginning now. You can expect its agents to contact existing clients to move forward before January 28th 2021. If you live in California or New York, you should listen, especially if you are female with the older Signature Care 500 policy series still offering you unisex rates.

If you live in any state outside of New York or California you should not pay attention to the removal of the Signature Care 600 policy series as you will not be missing anything once it disappears.

Once the Mass Mutual traditional long term care insurance policy is retired, Mass Mutual will still offer hybrid long term care insurance policies to consumers.

Unfortunately for Mass Mutual its hybrid policy options CareChoice One and CareChoice Select have been utter failures in the hybrid long term care insurance brokerage arena as currently structured and priced. Still, I am sure the Mass Mutual brokers will still pitch these policies, as will Fidelity Investments which has a marketing agreement with Mass Mutual (and New York Life).

MassMutual will also offer accelerated death benefit riders for chronic illness beginning this November.

Source of excepts: OPINION: Lenenberg, J., “Mass Mutual To Exit Traditional Long Term Care Insurance Market,” LTC Partner, Long Term Care covered, https://www.longtermcareinsurancepartner.com, 01/2021

 

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