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Genworth once sold long-term care insurance based on what turned out to be inaccurate assumptions about how LTCI would work.
Executives believe the company learned plenty about aging and long-term care needs along the way. They're now pushing ahead with efforts to deliver services based on that knowledge through the company's new CareScout business.
CareScout Services is setting up an LTC provider network with negotiated rate discounts and quality standards.
A sister company, CareScout Insurance, is using an $85 million capital contribution from Genworth to write new LTCI policies, through a company legally separate from the ones that wrote Genworth's own LTCI coverage.
Samir Shah, CareScout's chief executive officer, said in an interview that the company wants to help clients live better and plan better.
"CareScout wants to be a company that helps America solve its aging crisis," he said.
What it means: Your clients are getting older. Long-term care risk is one of the biggest financial risks they face.
Many clients with immediate care needs for themselves or their loved ones have no idea where to start. Even affluent clients may find that distinguishing between the care services that are supposed to exist and the services that really exist and are suitable is difficult.
Genworth hopes to get off the ground and help advisors help clients with that.
The backdrop: About 4 million people will turn 65 this year, and 1.1 million will turn 85.
The oldest baby boomers are now 80, and they will start reaching their "oldest old" years in 2031.
Genworth and many other companies saw the baby boomer generation aging crisis forming decades ago. They promoted products designed to help people insure themselves against LTC risk.
But the insureds lived longer than expected, held on to their coverage more tightly than expected, and used the benefits more than expected, and, because of falling interest rates, returns on the investment portfolios supporting the LTCI policies were much lower than expected.
Most issuers fled from the market. Genworth sold only a negligible amount of new coverage.
CareScout: In recent years, Genworth has tried to stabilize its operations by putting an active mortgage insurance business in an affiliated company with its own stock listing.
The company created efforts to revive the LTCI business by forming CareScout.
CareScout's progress: Genworth is not saying much yet about the CareScout LTCI business.
It reported last week, during a conference call with securities analysts, that the product is now approved for sale in 40 states and that applications are pending in four more states.
The CareScout Insurance launch "lays the foundation for disciplined, scalable growth," Thomas McInerney, Genworth's CEO, told the analysts. "We are actively engaging with partners to broaden our distribution channels and plan to launch worksite and association group offerings later this year."
The company gave more numbers about the CareScout Services business.
The unit's CareScout Quality Network now offers access to 790 home care providers in about 1,000 U.S. locations, and the work reaches about 97% of the U.S. population over 65, McInerney said. The unit recently acquired Seniorly, a care navigation service with access to about 3,000 assisted living facilities.
CareScout also offers care planners who, for a fee, can create care plans for clients.
The unit is starting by focusing on serving Genworth's own LTCI policyholders and holders of LTCI policies written by two other companies.
The unit matched about 1,000 people with care in 2024 and set a goal of making 2,500 matches in 2025. The unit actually helped make 3,255 matches in 2025, McInerney said.
The unit hopes to make 7,500 care matches this year.
The unit also hopes to sell the care planning services through relationships with other insurers, employers and employee assistance programs.
The future: Shah said in the interview that demand for CareScout services looks strong.
"We have a very healthy pipeline," Shah said.
Consumers are already starting to call CareScout directly to ask for help with care planning and finding care services, he said.
Shah thinks one reason for strong demand is the difficulties facing families that need care services.
"The demand for care is rising at a time when the supply of care is declining," he said.
The supply constraints make connecting clients with effective, reputable care planning and care-finding services especially important.
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