 Long Term Care Insurance Rates
Can long term care insurance rates increase after you buy?
A long term care insurance
company cannot increase rates for an individual policyholder. But
with the approval of state insurance regulators, long term care
insurance
companies can raise the rates for all customers who purchased policies
during a certain period of time.
How to determine which companies will raise long
term care insurance rates on their policies
When you are shopping for a long term care insurance policy, choose
a insurance company with "billions" in assets. Be
careful when buying long term care insurance from smaller companies.
Smaller
insurance
companies
have
a greater
tendency
than larger companies to
rising rates
for existing policyholders. Premium can be raised by 30%, 50%
or even 100%.
Reasons an insuracne company
would
raise
rates
includes:
pricing policies too low, overestimating how many people would
let their policies lapse, selling policies to
bad risks customers, low insurance-company reserves due to poor investment
returns.
You can check insurance companies'
ratings online.
You should also ask your insurance agent if the particular long term care insurance
company had a rate increase in the last eight years.
What to do if your long term care insurance premium are increased
If you can no longer afford your long term care insurance premium,
see if you can buy a new policy with a larger, more stable
long term care insurance company. If you had health problems, you
might not be approved for a new policy. And if you are over age
70, the premiums for a new policy may be much higher.
Another option is to reduce the level of benefits on your existing
long term care insurance policy. Think about reducing the lifetime
benefit or remove the home care benefit.
Long term care insurance companies that have not raised annual
rates on long term care policies for the last eight years
- CNA
- GE Capital
- John Hancock
- Metropolitan Life
- Prudential
- UnumProvident
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