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Life Health > Long-Term Care Planning

New Stand-Alone LTCI Player Continues to Move Forward

By Allison Bell

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The team behind a new stand-alone long-term care insurance (LTCI) policy, the EssentialLTC policy, is continuing to expand its LTCI effort.

National Guardian Life Insurance Company (NGL) and LifeCare Assurance Company report that they have achieved Long Term Care Partnership program status in seven more states.

The EssentialLTC team can now offer policyholders access to state LTC Partnership programs in a total of 13 states, the companies say.

(Related: Long-Term Care Insurance Market Gets First New Issuer in 10 Years)

NGL is a 108-year-old mutual insurer based in Madison, Wisconsin.

LifeCare is a Woodland Hills, California-based company that develops and administers LTCI products.

The companies introduced the EssentialLTC product in July 2016, based partly on the companies’ thesis that the current problems with stand-alone long-term care insurance are due mainly to low interest rates and the early issuers’ lack of claim experience. The EssentialLTC team contends that a new LTCI issuer can avoid the problems that the legacy LTCI issuers face and make stand-alone LTCI a viable product.

The Essential LTC product is now available in all states except California, Hawaii, Montana and New York.

The federal LTC Partnership law lets a state provide Medicaid-based financial incentives for residents to buy private long-term care insurance. States with partnership programs ease Medicaid  nursing home benefits asset limits for resident who buy qualified LTCI coverage, exhaust the private benefits, and then seek help from Medicaid with paying for care.

Marc Glickman, chief sales officer at LifeCare, says in a statement about the EssentialLTC product that the LTC Partnership program can provide a good incentive for consumers to protect themselves against long-term care risk.

“People who prudently plan to protect their loved ones from the devastation of an extended care event should have the choice of comprehensive and affordable coverage,” Glickman says.

Dennis Vann, an NGL national sales vice president, says in a statement of his own that more announcements could be coming soon.

“We continue to work closely with state regulators and look forward to announcing additional partnership states and new product features in the coming months,” Vann says.

— Read James Glickman to Lead Society of Actuaries, on ThinkAdvisor.

— Connect with ThinkAdvisor Life/Health on Facebook and Twitter.

Allison Bell

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