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October 20, 2020 at 02:32 PM
The American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) is trying to get agents, insurers and others interested in promoting long-term care (LTC) planning awareness — in a year when, for some Americans, LTC planning has made the difference between dying alone in an understaffed nursing home, and dying at home with at least some access to loved ones.
AALTCI has posted a collection of National Long-Term Care Awareness Month materials here.
The awareness campaigns take place in November.
AALTCI started the awareness month campaign in 2008, at a time when interest rates were higher, and insurers’ interest in the stand-alone long-term care insurance (LTCI) market was stronger.
Jesse Slome, AALTCI’s director, says in a statement about the upcoming month campaign that 14 million U.S. residents are already getting some form of long-term care, and that the number is on track to grow to 27 million by 2050.
Resources
- Links to AALTCI 2020 LTC Awareness Month resources are available here.
- An article about how COVID-19 affected one insurer’s long-term care insurance claimants is available here.
Average out-of-pocket costs are $140,000 for people who use paid LTC services, and “almost 9% will spend over $250,000,” Slome says.
About 7.5 million people have LTCI coverage, and LTCI issuers paid about $11 billion in benefits to about 310,000 claimants in 2019, Slome says.
AALTCI does not include “hybrid products” that combine LTC benefits with life insurance or annuities in its LTCI totals, but the percentage of permanent life policies that come with LTC benefits appears to be high, and millions of other people likely have life-LTC or annuity-LTC hybrid benefits.
AALTCI’s 2020 awareness month kit includes logos and an LTC fact sheet.
COVID-19 has already killed at least 60,000 U.S. nursing home residents, and it appears to be increasing nursing home mortality levels by at least about 20% over the usual levels, according to nursing home COVID-19 impact data collected by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees Medicare and Medicaid.
Most nursing homes and assisted living facilities have imposed tough restrictions on visitors, in an effort to hold infection rates down.
COVID-19 death rates for older people getting home care and higher-quality nursing homes appear to be much lower than death rates for older people in lower-quality nursing homes, and older people who can use LTCI benefits, LTC hybrid benefits or other private resources to pay for home care can see loved ones.
The situation at LTC facilities could get worse The American Health Care Association and the National Center for Assisted Living, groups that represent 14,000 care facilities, warned Monday that the number of COVID-19 cases is surging out in the community, and that facilities need federal aid immediately to strengthen infection control and response efforts.
