U.S. private long-term care insurance (LTCI) issuers have reported paying $7.85 billion in LTCI benefits for 250,000 insureds in 2014.
The American Association for Long Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) is reporting those figures in an announcement of its latest claim report update. The LTCI benefits payment total increased about 5 percent, from $7.5 billion, for 2013, AALTCI says.
AALTCI bases the benefits payment data on results from an insurer survey.
The last time AALTCI made more detailed numbers available, two years ago, it was reporting that insurers had paid a total of $6.6 billion in LTCI benefits for 264,000 insureds for 2012.
The number of insureds using benefits fell 5.3 percent between 2012 and 2014, but the average amount of benefits paid per insured increased about 25 percent over that period, to $31,400 per insured.
Researchers from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) health statistics group have estimated that the United States spent a total of about $250 billion on home health care and nursing home care in 2014. Private LTCI benefits may have accounted for about 3 percent of that spending.
AALTCI Executive Director Jesse Slome said consumers should think of LTCI more as nursing home avoidance protection than as nursing home insurance. About half of new LTCI claims processed were for care in the home, Slome said.
See also: LTCI cost picture looks complicated.
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