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Search Results for: rate hikes

The Bad News About Long Term Care Insurance

June 21, 2018 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Isn’t that an eye-catching headline? It’s human nature to be drawn to bad news, addressing or even causing panic in the general public. And the media knows it, which is why they are motivated to share the very worst-case scenarios without exploring more common experiences.

Selling the Bad News

Here’s a short story that NBC recently ran, highlighting a couple’s worst dreams coming true. Their Long Term Care insurance (LTCi) premiums experienced noteworthy rate hikes. The couple’s story creates sympathy and also promotes fear among an uninformed public that would likely benefit from the benefits of LTCi coverage.

The story shared is absolutely true and the situation is difficult for the featured couple.

BUT IT’S NOT THE WHOLE STORY

Here are some facts that they forgot to share:

  1. Older policies (written before 1996) were very robust and fully-featured. And yes, the rates charged were based on estimates that have proven to be faulty.
  2. Holders of these older policies sometimes need to downgrade benefits to offset rising premiums. However, even with downgraded coverage, they still have higher benefits than a comparable policy has today.

How to Spread the Good News

Perhaps another reason for poor media coverage is due to a shortage of trained LTCi specialists. Before stories like the one from NBC is publicized, it would be helpful to get some insights from the industry experts, who were (of course) not consulted for this article. My clients know how to contact me with any and all questions about their policies. If they receive a rate hike notice, we have an honest conversation including:

  • What caused the rate hike?
  • Is likely to happen again and, if so, how often?
  • Can they afford to maintain their current coverage?
  • What is the most effective strategy going forward?

A respected colleague, Margie Barrie, wrote this piece that gives an informed response to the rate hikes some of her clients have experienced. The industry has gathered better data over decades of experience. Companies now know that once we purchase our LTCi policy, almost nobody ever drops it. More people than anticipated are collecting from their LTCi, for longer lengths of time.

In that article, Barrie also addresses the possibility of future rate hikes. On older policies, they could be more likely. But we can always find ways to ameliorate them, if necessary.

You Get to Decide

When you see some bad news about LTCi, please reach out to someone you trust to give you the full story. My clients rely on me for the truth.

If you’re ready to begin this conversation, let’s get started! Click here to receive your no-obligation quote for your personal LTCi policy.

Filed Under: Uncategorized

Dissolving Myths about LTCi, Part 2

February 7, 2018 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Previously, on Long Term Care Insurance Myths…

People with question marks over facesWe have seen multiple examples of the press misrepresenting the current state of the Long Term Care insurance (LTCi) industry. In my last blog post (you can read it here), I called out a specific article in the Wall Street Journal (Jan 2018) that predicted the imminent downfall of the industry. They cited financial instability and unexpected rate hikes as the central culprits.

Multiple experts from the LTCi industry penned their objections, offering well-sourced facts. Like me, they were compelled to present a number of articles in response. The status of long term care insurance is not only financially stable, but also more popular than ever.

More Answers to Long Term Care Insurance Myths

This blog focuses on the response from my colleague, Steve Moses, President of the Center for Long Term Care Reform. Moses is a noted expert on both state and national levels.

In a letter addressed to the author of the WSJ article, Moses highlighted the glaring omission from the article: the dominant role that Medicaid plays in the long term care solution*. He reminds the author that government policy is central in determining the financial stability of long term care.

He concludes: “It is a tragedy to blame private insurers and the dedicated people who’ve tried to make the LTC insurance product work for problems caused by poor public policy. Blame the culprits, not the victims.”

As we’ve recently discussed, people who own long term care insurance (LTCi) have necessary funds and are far more likely to be able to avoid Medicaid, stay at home, or access quality assisted living if they need long term care.

Click here to receive your personal quote for Long Term Care Insurance.


*In his monograph, “How to Fix Long Term Care Financing” (July 2017), Moses explains:

“Medicaid is not just a factor in long-term care financing; it is the critical factor. Since its founding in 1965, Medicaid has evolved from a minor funding source to the primary funder of formal paid care.”

 

Filed Under: Correcting Ignorant Public Figures, Helpful Information About LTC, Information About LTC Tagged With: Long Term Care insurance, LTCi, LTCi rate hikes, rate hikes

Myths about LTCi (No Thanks to the Press), Part 1

February 1, 2018 by Honey Leveen Leave a Comment

Two senior men reading newspaperIn my almost 30 years as a Long Term Care insurance (LTCi) specialist, I have seen and shared multiple articles with you on the subject of faulty journalism. Some LTCi articles are more accurate than others. The press tends to have a negative view of long term care insurance. I work hard to help you sort the facts from fiction.

We know that negative news sells more papers. The press covers LTCi rate hikes in an often uninformed, inflammatory fashion, making it falsely appear that policyholders have no satisfactory in-between options. Journalists pretend to be expert financial advisors. This can lead policyholders to the conclusion they have no other option than to cancel their LTCi coverage. It discourages people who should and can afford LTCi premiums from considering it. Such non-factual, misinformed reporting has devastating results! We’ll talk about this in greater detail, later.

Here’s the other thing:  LTCi is a complicated product with a lot of moving parts. One cannot become an expert overnight. These journalists (even at the more respected publications), in their zeal to bring you the story, get a lot of the information wrong.

Long Term Care Insurance Myths

Let’s talk about those rate hikes.

In January 2018, the Wall Street Journal published an alarming article that essentially reported the implosion of the LTCi industry. The journalist predicted that the increasing financial instability of the industry was going to result in massive rate hikes, for which most aging policy holders were unprepared. The fear over looming rate hikes is one of the prevailing Long Term Care Insurance myths.

FACT:  It is almost never necessary to drop a LTCi policy due to a rate hike. We normally downgrade the policy instead, which lowers premiums while conserving high LTCi policy function.

FACT:  Inciting panic over these policies results in dissuading people from acquiring this important coverage. It gives them one more excuse to avoid responsible and reasonable long term care planning in advance.

My colleague, Matt McCann, wrote a thoughtful piece to address the rate stability and affordability of LTCi:

“An insurance company can not ask for increases on current product series policy holders based on the mistakes of the older plans. This provides substantial peace-of-mind for those who are planning today.

“It is also not easy to raise premiums; the insurance company must show a substantial need based on actuarial data and have it based on a class basis only.”

FACT:  The sale of LTCi policies is increasing. The real financial risk comes from lack of coverage, providing asset protection and peace of mind to families.  McCann adds, “It safeguards their retirement accounts… while making their aging issues much easier on their family.”

Matt McCann’s complete article can be found here.

There are a number of well-intentioned articles providing misinformation. We’ll be addressing more of these in future blogs. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, if you’d like to get a free quote for your own LTCi policy, click here.

Filed Under: Correcting Ignorant Public Figures, Helpful Information About LTC, Information About LTC Tagged With: Long Term Care insurance, LTCi, LTCi rate hikes, rate hikes

Why the Media Can’t Get LTCi Right

August 18, 2016 by Honey Leave a Comment

MediaThe lead story of the July 25, 2016 issue of New York Magazine is titled, “The Case Against the Media“. The article is a compilation of comments from noted journalists about what the media is doing right and what it does wrong.

This article really nailed what I’ve observed over the course of nearly 30 years: media rarely reports on long-term care insurance (LTCi) accurately or objectively.

Readers, please take note. Journalists themselves admit to using inflammatory headlines and lead paragraphs to hook in readers. Right now they are doing just this with the current wave of LTCi rate hikes on policies sold through the federal government. I have already examined a few federal LTCi rate hike letters. Rate hikes on federal LTCi plans can be ameliorated pretty easily while still conserving effective LTCi performance. You will never read this in the media. It does not sell copy.

The pseudonymous proprietor of a fake news site National Report says, “I just wanted to see what people were willing to believe.” He wrote articles about people using bank debit cards to buy marijuana in Colorado and President Obama funding a Muslim museum. Some of his stories went viral. He says, “There’s hints of the truth, of course, but you can make up anything you want, really. The headline needs to be very specific and kind of hard-hitting, draw in the anger, the emotion. The first couple of paragraphs of the story need to sound fairly legit, and after that you can just get into crazy town. Nobody reads past that, I mean, seriously.”

Journalists admit to general media ignorance and not knowing enough about technical subjects. This is certainly true of most articles on LTCi. When asked if the media is hard enough on its subjects, this anonymous quote expresses exactly what I’ve been saying for many years, “Fewer reporters, smaller budgets, 60-second news cycles clickbait, online garbage disguised as writing and reporting – it all leads to a lack of depth, follow-up, asking tough questions that require time and resources to dissect, consider, illuminate.”

I have been saying this for years. These truths seem pretty obvious to me.

Filed Under: Helpful Information About LTC Tagged With: Long Term Care insurance, LTCi, LTCi rate hikes, New York Magazine, rate hikes

Media Continues to Love Trashing LTC Insurance

May 16, 2016 by Honey Leave a Comment

The MediaI will never completely understand why inflammatory headlines like this are necessary: “Out-of-Control Premium Hikes for Long-Term Care Insurance”.

I do partially understand why they run inflammatory headlines. “If it bleeds, it leads”. Disparaging headlines sell copies.

Nowadays, the majority of LTCi media coverage is constructive. But readers usually have to get past negative titles and first paragraphs intended to “hook” people into reading the story.

In the case of Long-Term Care Insurance (LTCi), this is very harmful to the public. Disparaging headlines and lead paragraphs further encourage people to make excuses to avoid important, necessary conversations about planning for LTC.

In addition, inflammatory LTCi coverage fuels falsehoods such as out-of-control, wanton rate hikes and claim difficulties.

If people bother to read “Out-of-Control Premium Hikes for Long-Term Care Insurance” they will find excellent reporting on why today’s LTCi policies should experience very stable rates with very minimal odds of rate hikes.

Click here to read several blogs I’ve done that explain the reasons for and likelihood of LTCi rate hikes.

I want to give a “shout out” to my highly esteemed friends and colleagues Scott Olson, Steve Cain, and Jesse Slome who were quoted in this story. This article’s excellent content is largely due to their input.

Filed Under: Denial, Elephant in the Room, Helpful Information About LTC, I'll Just Self-Insure, Information About LTC, Misinformation About LTC Tagged With: AALTCI, Jesse Slome, Long Term Care insurance, LTCi, LTCi rate hikes, Scott Olson, Steve Cain

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Honey Leveen, LUTCF, CLTC, LTCP
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Phone: 713-988-4671
Fax: 281-829-7177

Email: honey@honeyleveen.com

Email: honey@honeyleveen.com

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