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May 18, 2008 at 04:00 PM
Action taken by state insurance regulators recently include endorsing a long term care data report, voting on changes for an external review model, and adopting a charge to develop a model to facilitate enactment of a genetic anti-discrimination law put in place by Congress.
Regulators, through the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., also discussed suitability of annuity sales and a project to create reserving for principles-based reserving.
A long term care data call analysis and report was unanimously adopted during a joint conference call of the NAIC’s Health Insurance and Managed Care “B” Committee and Market Regulation and Consumer Affairs “D” Committee. The joint committee report is not an NAIC report and therefore, does not need to be fully adopted by the NAIC. However, the Committees’ minutes will be adopted by the executive committee and plenary when the NAIC meets in San Francisco for its summer meeting.
The report contains data collected from 23 companies. It provided the following information:
–Total policies in force at the beginning of each year increased by 8.9% since 2004 to over 3.7 million policies;
–Policies issued per year for each type are decreasing with nursing home policies having the largest decrease of 56% since 2004;
–The actual lapse ratio for individual companies varied with lapse ratios ranging from below 1% to over 9%;
–Total complaints reported directly to the companies have increased by 123% since 2004 (1,785 to 3,983) and complaints regarding claims increased the most by 174.7% (708 to 1,945); and,
–Claims for comprehensive policies have increased each year and by 27% since 2004. and claims for nursing home policies have increased each year and by 11% since 2004.
Publicity surrounding the payment of long term care claims by insurers resulted in Congress taking a look at the issue and U.S. Senators including Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., to call for a review by the General Accounting Office.
