Penn Treaty In Dispute With LTC Reinsurer

Penn Treaty American Corp. says a reinsurer has withdrawn its offer to back older long term care insurance policies sold by two Penn Treaty subsidiaries.

Imagine International Reinsurance Ltd., Bermuda, says it will not provide any additional letters of credit to back a block of LTC business written before Jan. 1, 2002, by the subsidiaries, Penn Treaty Network America Insurance Company and American Network Insurance Company, Penn Treaty announced today.

Penn Treaty notified Imagine that it considers Imagine to be in breach of contract for failing to continue to underwrite the policies with letters of credit, as agreed under a reinsurance agreement in 2005.

Imagine says it declined to continue backing the older policies because Penn Treaty has failed to secure approvals for rate increases on the policies from some state regulators, according to Penn Treaty.

“Penn Treaty vehemently disagrees that state insurance regulatory actions or inactions support this position,” Penn Treaty says.

Cameron Waite, executive vice president of strategic operations for Penn Treaty, insists his company has historically received state approvals for all its rate increase requests.

In 2005, Penn Treaty entered into 2 agreements with Imagine to reinsure its LTC business.