Effective immediately, Mutual of Omaha is suspending long-term care sales in the state of Washington.

Here is what you need to know:

• Applications submitted on or before the end of the day June 16, 2021, will be processed as normal.
• All pending in-house business will be processed as normal.
• Any applications received June 17, 2021, and after will not be accepted. No exceptions will be made

We anticipate resuming sales in Washington once again in November 2021.

As a leading long-term care insurance provider, Mutual of Omaha has a responsibility to our policyholders and distribution partners to ensure our product offerings are used as designed, offering security and peace of mind to our valued customers.

Effective immediately, we are instituting the following adjustments to the MutualCare^® Solutions product offerings for the state of Washington:

• Increasing minimum issue age to 40
• Increasing minimum monthly benefit to $3,000
• Increasing minimum inflation option to 3%, lifetime duration

To process applications not meeting the minimum requirements listed, paper and e-applications must be received at Mutual of Omaha on or before June 11, 2021. No exceptions will be made.

Chargeback Provision

• Beginning with applications signed May 19, 2021, there will be a commission chargeback of 100% if a policy is issued through November 1, 2021, and lapses within the first policy year.

Paramed Ordering Changes

• Parameds will no longer be used in lieu of doctor’s visits. Applications received for clients who have not been seen by a physician in the last 24 months will be declined.

NGL is currently processing the influx of business created by the Washington State Cares Fund as efficiently as possible; however, due to the high volume of applications, it is recommended you submit Washington State applications on or before September 3, 2021. Applications submitted on or before this date will have a greater likelihood of being issued by November 1, 2021.

Updated Premium Minimum – Applications submitted for less than a $3,000 annual premium (or modal equivalent) will not be processed. Any application received in the home office after Friday, August 6, 2021, must meet the new minimum premium level or it will not be processed.{/read]

New Washington state premium minimum
July 2, 2021 Read More

NGL is taking steps to increase the likelihood applicants are purchasing LTCi protection for the long term.
NGL is instituting a new premium minimum in Washington state only:

• Effective Wednesday, July 7, 2021, all WA applications must have a minimum annual premium of $2,000.
• The other previously announced benefit minimums will no longer in be effect and will be replaced by the $2,000 annual premium minimum.
• Please note, the minimum annual premium for a joint application is only $2,000 total, not $2,000 per applicant.

Any application below the $2,000 minimum will not be processed if received by our administrative office after July 6, 2021, regardless of application signature date.

As a reminder NGL has instituted new policy minimum benefits, underwriting requirements and administrative changes in Washington State only. To provide coverage similar to the benefits available through the Washington Cares Fund:

• The minimum Daily Benefit Amount available is $100. Applications with $50 – $90 Daily Benefit Amounts will not be accepted.
• The applicant must choose an inflation option. Applications with no inflation will not be accepted.
• Facility only applications will not be accepted.

Underwriting: If an applicant in Washington has not been seen by a physician in the last 24 months, they will be declined; a para-med will no longer be used in these situations.

As a reminder, there will be a full charge back of commissions for policies where the premium is not paid into the second year of coverage.

Effective immediately, NGL is instituting new policy minimum benefits, underwriting requirements and administrative changes in Washington State only. To provide coverage similar to the benefits available through the Washington Cares Fund:

• The minimum Daily Benefit Amount available is $100. Applications with $50 – $90 Daily Benefit Amounts will not be accepted.
• The applicant must choose an inflation option. Applications with no inflation will not be accepted.
• Facility only applications will not be accepted.

• Washington is a pre-appointment state that requires agents to have an approved and effective state appointment prior to signing or dating an application.
• We will be processing applications in the order received with no exceptions.
• It is quite possible as volume increases, processing times will be impacted.
• We recommend submitting applications ASAP.

Work is underway to process unprecedented influx of LTC applications

Since late May, Long Term Care Group (LTCG) has received an unprecedented volume of long-term care (LTC) applications. This volume is causing delays in the processing of LTC applications and the ability to respond promptly to inquiries.

What’s causing the influx
The Washington State Legislature established a long-term care insurance benefit for all eligible workers funded by a payroll tax to address the future long-term care crisis. The recent Washington Cares Fund announcement prompted clients in the state of Washington to seek out their own long-term care insurance.

While Thrivent and LTCG anticipated and planned for a temporary increase in LTC apps from Washington, the volume far exceeded those expectations.

Thrivent will implement the following changes to our long-term care insurance product for sale in the state of Washington effective at 10 AM Pacific/ 12 PM Central on Friday, May 28th:

• We will increase our minimum issue age to 40.
• We will increase our minimum monthly benefit amount to $3,000.
• Paper or electronic applications for proposed insureds under age 40 or monthly benefit less than $3,000 (eApp or Paper) must be received at Thrivent by 10 AM Pacific/ 12 PM Central on Friday, May 28th.
• There will be no exceptions made to these deadlines.

Quote: “An Private insurers are deciding to opt out of dancing with Washington state’s new WA Cares Fund universal long-term care (LTC) benefits program. The carriers say they want to make sure Washington state residents aren’t simply buying private coverage to avoid paying a new 0.58% payroll tax that’s supposed to cover the cost of the public LTC benefits program. The new tax is set to take effect Jan. 1, 2022. Residents can opt out of the public program, and the tax, if they can show they have had private coverage in force before Nov. 1, 2021, under current program rules. … Stephen Moses, president of the Center for Long-Term Care Reform— a Seattle-based organization that promotes efforts to protect LTCI coverage from being crowded out by public LTC benefits programs, said in another commentary that the Washington state program belongs in ‘the government LTC insurance Hall of Shame,’ along with the Medicaid nursing home benefits program and a program set up for public employees in California. ‘The drafters of the WA Cares Fund should go back to the drawing board before they ruin the LTC insurance market in Washington state entirely,’ Moses said.”
LTC Comment: Source for those Moses quotes is “LTC Bullet: The WA Cares Fund Gets a Bad Wrap,” published Friday, June 18, 2021.

Quote: “Below are two long-term care insurance announcements I’ve seen this morning. Companies are working to prevent Washingtonians from opening tax-avoidance policies they suspect will be dropped. Because the new state program is a bad deal for so many Washingtonians, and because Washington workers’ only choice is to pay into the state’s new long-term care program or obtain a private plan before Nov. 1, which is not really a choice, workers have made a mad rush on providers. Those who never wanted long-term care insurance to begin with, as they planned on using their assets or Medicaid to get through any possible long-term care needs in their futures, might discontinue a privately obtained plan once they receive the promised payroll-tax exemption from the state.”
LTC Comment: Click through to the article and you’ll also find a link to our “LTC Bullet: The WA Cares Fund Gets a Bad Wrap,” published the same day, which Ms. Hovde requested to post on their website. It is good to have allies like Elizabeth Hovde and the Washington Policy Center in our fight to stop bad LTC public policy.

Quote: “An investment subcommittee working on the WA Cares Fund — the state’s new long-term care entitlement program that comes with a payroll tax on workers beginning in January — met today. The meeting offered confirmation that the 2020 ballot-box defeat of a constitutional amendment set this program up for long-term failure. The constitutional amendment would have allowed the state to invest the program’s dollars into stocks and other methods of investment. Without such investment, the fund appears doomed, despite a payroll tax of 58 cents per $100 of W-2 workers’ incomes.”
LTC Comment: The politicians and bureaucrats pushing the WA Cares Fund won’t take “no” for an answer from voters. They know the Fund can’t survive without putting its rapidly increasing reserves into risky investments susceptible to market declines. With the stock markets at all-time highs, that is a terrible idea. Trying to sneak it by voters with another, less visible ballot initiative, as they’ve discussed doing, is unconscionable.

Quote: “The WA Cares Fund website now has a page clearly titled ‘exemptions,’ pointing Washingtonians to a new section on the state’s Office of the Insurance Commissioner’s website. The section explains the types of long-term care insurance that qualify to opt out of the payroll tax. It also says the Employment Security Department is still developing the way to apply for an exemption. October 1st is the first day a person can actually apply to opt out, and it is not expected we’ll see the application form before that time. This makes me concerned the state won’t be able to process all the applications that come in from workers before January when their paychecks start being raided. … The state-imposed 58-cent tax per $100 of monthly earnings, for all of your remaining working years, and a skimpy $36,500 lifetime benefit in return — a benefit that many workers will never see — is what you have to compare against private long-term care plans. For many workers, the state’s deal won’t be hard to beat.”
LTC Comment: The Keystone Kops of LTC Insurance continue complicating the coverage.

Quote: “If you want to opt out of a payroll tax that begins in January — assessed to fund a [Washington] state-run, one-size-fits-all, long-term-care-insurance fund that you might or might not benefit from (read more about the coming tax on our Center for Health Care blog) — here is what we know:”
LTC Comment: Click through for the answers and all the red tape.