Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Long Term Care (LTC) Insurance - What are your facts?

[Fred-List manager (fholson]

Robert Tabak <rtabak50 [at] gmail.com>
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Here is a description of my experience (and that of my wife -who though
active, working, etc has enough combined health issues that she was turned
down.

Consumer Reports (you may need to subscribe) has had a number of
discussions of LTC insurance in recent years, providing good non-profit
perspectives.

Here is a letter I wrote to professional colleagues  about two years ago.
Fortunately, I have no experience with claiming benefits.
_______________________________

Dec. 2013 (approx.)


Over the last two years or so Ruth and I sought to purchase long-term care
insurance.  This proved a long and complicated process.  We did our
homework (articles in Consumer Reports Money Advisor newsletter – a
separate publication from the monthly magazine [CR Money Advisor ceased
publication in 2015]-- were particularly helpful.  There is a new article
in the Dec. 2013 newsletter and some info on buying LTC insurance at
ConsumerReports.org/longterm1213.)  We got recommendations from our
financial planner, a professional association, an alumni association, and
others, and met with agents representing multiple companies as well as a
single company.


Overall, the entire process was discouraging.  As we’d expect (agents earn
commissions) they recommended their own companies.  Many of them also
disparaged other companies, claimed other agents were not being honest,
tried (sometimes correctly, sometimes not) to show that we were comparing
apples and oranges.  I was surprised at several agents who were unprepared,
and could not answer basic questions about their policies and coverage and
the differences among them, and did not get those answers to us later.  One
agent “recommended” a shoddy policy from a company I had never heard of.
When I researched it I found that the outfit was just one step away from
insolvency. [An A.M. Best financial rating of “B” is not good, but shows
financial trouble.] In short, we did not find this an enlightening process.


While I would still strongly recommend getting multiple proposals, I did
want to say that I had an overall positive experience with one agent, Kyle
Cunningham of Northwest Mutual’s Philadelphia office.  215-981-1868,
kyle.cunningham [at] nm.com


<kyle.cunningham [at] nm.com>

He stuck with the application I submitted (only I got approved) and worked
to get medical records, get company underwriting reviews, follow-ups, and
other central office processing.   FWIW, Northwest as a mutual company is
owned by its policy holders, not share holders.  Unlike some other
companies that either dropped LTC coverage or had price increases of up to
40% in the last few years, Northwest has not had across-the-board fee
increases. (No company can guarantee that won’t happen in the future.  However,
apparently other companies started with low-ball fees, incorrectly
guesstimating the number of future claims.  Northwest, as I understand it,
started with a higher fee years ago that is now closer to mid-range.) If
you want to contact Kyle Cunningham it is fine to mention my name.


Since there is no government program to support LTC (including supports for
home care or aides, not only institutionalization) this may be a good idea
if you can afford it and can get approved for coverage.  Consumer Reports
says people with assets (excluding a home) of under $250,000 probably can’t
afford LTC insurance.  Those with assets of over $1 million (that may be
per person--not sure) may be able to finance LTC, if they need it, out of
pocket. Our additional experience: People whose health has enough problems
(even if individual medical issues are not large or debilitating) as
defined by the insurance companies either will not be offered any LTC
policy or only be offered one at higher rates.


I hope that this report is of some assistance.


Bob Tabak

Wissahickon Village CoHo (in formation) Philadelphia


On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 6:16 AM, <cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org> wrote:

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>    1. Re: Long Term Care (LTC) Insurance - What are your facts?
>       (Ann Zabaldo)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Mon, 7 Dec 2015 22:07:15 -0500
> From: Ann Zabaldo <zabaldo [at] earthlink.net>
> To: "cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org" <cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org>
> Subject: Re: [C-L]_ Long Term Care (LTC) Insurance - What are your
>         facts?
> Message-ID: <279AFC80-B298-45BF-BF67-A35CD2782486 [at] earthlink.net>
> Content-Type: text/plain;       charset=utf-8
>
> You hit the nail on the head Sharon! This is a very complicated issue.
>
> There's an age cut off for getting long-term care insurance.
>
> If you have a chronic illness Insurance companies do not want to talk to
> you.  I know because I tried to get long-term health insurance after I was
> diagnosed with MS.
>
> Medicare does not pay for nursing homes.
>
> "Aging in place" is just three words for dying alone. Keeping people in
> their homes means keeping them isolated, lonely, and bored. The three
> scourges of aging alone. Even when you have nurses come in every day there
> are still long periods when you're alone. Even if you have 24 hour nursing
> care no one will ever care for you and look after you the way someone who
> knows and loves you will. That's why am a great believer in the power of
> relationships develop through aging in community.   Unless we developed a
> social contract within our "tribe" I don't think all the long-term care
> insurance will really help the challenges that those of us who age beyond
> healthy aging will face.  Also? Not enough money in the known universe to
> support the 70 million boomers who will be retiring. Even if only 5 million
> of those reach the age between healthy aging and death? Not enough money in
> the known universe.
>
> We are not prepared for the Tsunami that is reaching are sure as we speak.
>
> Ann Zabaldo
> Takoma Village Cohousing
> Washington DC
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
> > On Dec 7, 2015, at 8:59 PM, Sharon Villines <sharon [at] sharonvillines.com>
> wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >> On Dec 7, 2015, at 7:44 PM, Kathryn McCamant <
> kmccamant [at] COHOUSING-SOLUTIONS.COM> wrote:
> >>
> >> My understanding that Long Term Care Insurance is one of the
> >> only sources of funds to cover ?in home? care?which is what we hope to
> be
> >> able to use to stay in our communities.
> >
> > This a very complicated subject. Some states have excellent programs for
> helping people stay in their homes. I would start there. And check local
> hospital home nursing programs.
> >
> > Even though all of her children had moved away, we left our mother in
> Iowa because it had the best care we or she could afford. She had a lovely
> apartment, nurses visiting every two weeks to put out her meds (all those
> pill cases), food delivered, pedicure/manicure and haircut, housecleaning,
> a medical shuttle for doctor?s appts. (All paid for by the state, Medicare,
> Medicaid, whatever. My brother handled those details.)
> >
> > A few years ago when I investigated long term care insurance, it was
> clear that it was not helpful unless you were very rich and had an
> excellent policy. Many had a million loopholes and didn?t cover even a
> fraction of what care would really cost. One financial planner said they
> can do more harm than good because if you have it its enough income to
> disqualify you for federal programs.
> >
> > Sharon
> > ----
> > Sharon Villines
> > Takoma Village Cohousing, Washington DC
> > http://www.takomavillage.org
> >
> >
> >
> >
> > _________________________________________________________________
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