Credit: ALM
Genworth Financial is hoping to set up a broad-based long-term care insurance business, not just sell a few LTCI policies.
Tom McInerney, Genworth's CEO, talked about the company's new CareScout Insurance unit last week, when Genworth posted earnings for the third quarter.
The third quarter ended Sept. 30. CareScout began selling new, stand-alone LTCI coverage in October, and none of the sales show up in Genworth's latest results.
But Genworth disclosed in the quarterly report it filed with securities regulators that it has approvals to sell the new CareScout Care Assurance policies in 37 states and has approvals in other states pending.
The company is developing an "innovative hybrid LTC design that pairs a minimum LTC benefit with low-cost equity funds for accumulation," McInerney said.
McInerney did not say whether he expects the market-linked LTC product to be set up as a life insurance policy, an annuity or a long-term care insurance policy, but he suggested that the product could come out by March 31.
Genworth is also preparing to distribute LTC products through associations and through programs that market individual products at the worksite, McInerney said.
Long-term care "is a huge market, because of the aging baby boomers," McInerney said. "So, we're very optimistic, given the size of the market."
The backdrop: Genworth helped create the modern long-term care insurance market, then suffered when the projections used to create the original products turned out to be wrong.
Now, the effort to offer stand-alone LTCI products may be going through a revival.
What it means: For advisors and their clients, an LTCI market revival might put more products and services on the shelves.
A revival could also create opportunities for advisors to get clients interested in talking about long-term care planning.
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