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Long Term Care In The News......
November 16, 2005
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Volume 42
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Welcome to the forty-second edition of
Long-Term Care in the News. As we
get ready to say goodbye to 2005, we wanted to share some quick ideas that
may help you end the year with a bang. We, at Custom Care Solution, LLC,
want you to be on the cutting edge of changes and updates within the
Long-Term Care industry. We will
accomplish this through these email bulletins distributed each week to our
brokers, agents and their staffs. We are attaching the new MetLife Market
Survey of Nursing Homes and Home Care Costs for 2005. Please save this
document as you might be referred to someone out of state!!
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METLIFE ANNOUNCES ROLLOUT OF ALL REMAINING STATES
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As we approach year-end, MetLife is nearing
completion of their VIP2 launches. At this point, they are anticipating
approval of ALL remaining states by
the end of 2005. In line with this,
their next launch will be on December 30.
You should assume that Florida, Massachusetts, New
Jersey,
New York Partnership and Pennsylvania will be part of this
roll out. We cannot stress to you
enough, the significant differences in premiums from the current VIP series to this new
product. You may be thinking that
your clients will put you off until after the holidays, THINK AGAIN. Illustrate to them, that by applying for LTC today, they may save
themselves upwards of 30%. Remember,
in most cases, it takes over a month to complete the underwriting process
plus your clients then have a 30 day period to make their premium payment
so in realistic terms, we are talking after the first of the year before
they have to “write the check”.
Don’t let the holidays get in the way of your sales.
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CHANGES SOON TO THE NYS PARTNERSHIP-
BOTH HANCOCK & MEDAMERICA'S PARTNERSHIP LOOK VERY INEXPENSIVE WITH THEIR 100%
HOME CARE OPTION
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If
you are an agent in New York State, you have probably heard
about the special training class that all agents must take before selling
the NYS Partnership for Long Term Care Insurance. In this training class, the instructor
announces sweeping changes to the Partnership design and Medicaid
eligibility. As you know, today if a
client has the NYS Partnership policy and exhausts the benefits of their
contract, they can qualify for Medicaid without having to spend down any of
their assets. This product currently
affords your clients unlimited asset protection. The new NYS Partnership product will
limit your client’s asset protection to a “dollar for dollar” method. This means that if a client purchases a
long term care Partnership policy with a lifetime maximum of $198,000 they
would be able to protect $198,000 of their assets. Right now NYS offers the best Partnership
program because of the unlimited asset protection. If you have clients that are looking into
the Partnership, now is the time to take action. We have no official word from the NYS
Partnership department as to when these changes will take place but we have
learned from our carriers that they are positioning their products
differently in order to comply with the new guidelines. Hancock and MedAmerica offer 100% home
care, which are older contracts priced with 1997-98 rates. Look at this as
an option for clients that are adverse to buying
newer, more expensive policies, or for older clients that have assets.
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MEDAMERICA TO CHANGE CAP ON DISCOUNTS IN NEW YORK
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Do you have clients in NY that are married and
in preferred health??? The company
is modifying CareDirections Simplicity’s
aggregate maximum for Care Partner and Preferred rate reductions. This change has taken place in numerous
states already and NY is about to come online with this change. The new maximum discount will be capped
at 20%. Today, the maximum discount
when both spouses apply and receive preferred discounts is 35%. This is a significant change to MedAmerica’s pricing structure and your clients should not
miss this window of opportunity.
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We at CCS are continually
looking for ways to keep our brokers up to date. If you’d like to send
comments or suggestions to make this newsletter better, please feel free to
contact us.
 
Debra A. Walker, LTCP, CLTC Karin
L. Wertheim, LTCP, CLTC
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