New York Move Makes Some LTCI More Portable

New York state is trying to make it easier for consumers to move long-term care insurance (LTCI) across state lines.

The Empire State has joined a national reciprocity compact aimed at states that offer long-term care (LTC) partnership programs.

In New York and other states that offer LTC partnership programs, consumers who buy LTCI policies that meet partnership program standards can coordinate the private LTCI policy benefits with Medicaid benefits.

The program helps consumers who buy a substantial amount of private LTCI but are unlucky and end up exhausting the private LTCI benefits.

In a state with a partnership program, a private LTCI policyholder who exhausts the private LTCI benefits can keep a substantial amount of personal assets and still qualify for Medicaid nursing home benefits. In New York state, for example, a partnership program participant can choose how much personal asset protection to buy through the LTCI partnership program. A participant who buys a total asset policy can have all assets excluded from Medicaid eligibility calculations, according to the partnership program.

One challenge is that each state has its own partnership program rules and its own list of LTCI products that can be used in conjunction with the partnership program.