State insurance regulators want to update a document that helps consumers decide whether long-term care insurance (LTCI) suits their needs.
The Senior Issues Task Force, an arm of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC), is revising the Long-Term Care Insurance Personal Worksheet.
See also: Consumer rep raises LTCI disclosure concerns
The NAIC is a trade group for regulators. It cannot change state insurance policies directly itself, but states can choose to use NAIC model laws, regulations, bulletins and other materials as the basis for their own insurance rules. States can also choose to have changes in some NAIC standards take effect in their jurisdictions automatically.
The long-term care insurance (LTCI) worksheet was part of an NAIC LTCI model regulation approved in 2002. In states that use the worksheet, an agent is supposed to have an LTCI applicant fill out the worksheet and return the worksheet to the LTCI issuer, to verify that the LTCI product involved appears to be suitable for that applicant.
A subgroup of the Seniors Task Force recently posted two proposed revisions of the model worksheet on its section of the NAIC’s website.
A Florida insurance regulator marked up the worksheet and focused mainly on formatting changes. The regulator suggested, for example, that the task force should decide whether to spell “long-term care” with a hyphen between “long” and “term” or without, and to stick with that style consistently throughout the worksheet.
Bonnie Burns of California and Brenda Cude of Georgia, two of the people picked by the NAIC to represent consumer interests in NAIC proceedings, wanted more changes.
For a look at some of the changes they proposed, read on.