Study Finds That LTC Insurance Keeps Workers Working

Study Finds That LTC Insurance Keeps Workers Working

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A new report suggests employers may be some of the biggest potential beneficiaries of private long-term care insurance.

Researchers who analyzed long-term care survey data collected in the 1980s and 1990s found that the daughters, daughters-in-law and other relatives responsible for caring for disabled elderly relatives were almost 50% more likely to hold jobs if the recipients of care had private long-term care insurance.

A college-educated caregiver was almost twice as likely to hold a job if private LTC benefits were available, the researchers write in the report, “The MetLife Study of Employed Caregivers: Does Long Term Care Insurance Make a Difference?”

Eighty-five percent of college-educated caregivers caring for relatives with private LTC benefits held jobs, compared with only 45% of college-educated caregivers caring for relatives without private LTC coverage, the researchers found.

“To me, the most important finding is that, even when you take into account the disability status of the elderly person, and the characteristics of the family, long-term care insurance still has a positive effect on the caregivers ability to remain in the workforce,” says Marc Cohen, a vice president at LifePlans Inc., Waltham, Mass.

LifePlans, a LTC consulting firm, and the National Alliance for Caregiving, Bethesda, Md., conducted the caregiving study. The study report is available on the caregiving alliance Web site, at http://www.caregiving.org/content/repsprods.asp.

The MetLife Mature Market Institute, a unit of MetLife Inc., New York, sponsored the research.

The survey data reviewed for the study included information on 504 caregivers caring for frail or disabled elderly relatives living outside of nursing homes who were receiving private LTC benefits, and 676 caregivers whose frail or disabled elderly relatives were living outside of nursing homes and not receiving private LTC benefits.