Helping Producers Help Their Clients Age On Their Own Terms
As we live longer and the cost of long term care continues its upward trajectory, the need for long term care financing solutions has never been greater. Add to that the historically low level of retirement savings and it doesn’t take long to see the financial tsunami heading our way.
With more than 40 years of experience, we remain committed to helping consumers solve the financial challenges of aging and helping brokers and financial professionals articulate and solve for this issue with their clients. It’s what we focus on every day at Genworth. It’s personal for us, because we’re all someone’s son or daughter. Many of us, including myself, have been there, experiencing first-hand the joys and challenges of caregiving. We know what could have made it easier, and we want nothing less for our policyholders and their families.
Our partnerships are a key part in helping solve this issue. That’s why we continually look for ways to enhance our relationships with producers and, just as important, to enhance producers’ relationships with their clients.
We do that in a number of ways: Research that sizes the need; products that provide a spectrum of solutions; advocacy for regulatory and legislative reform to make long term care insurance more accessible; technology that compresses the underwriting process; and, most important, exceptional service to policyholders when they need it the most—at the time of claim.
Sizing the Need
Each year, for the past 14 years, we’ve underwritten the Genworth Cost of Care Survey, which has become the go-to resource on the cost of long term care for consumers, producers and the media. Our Cost of Care app and interactive website provide producers with dynamic tools to help their clients understand the costs of care in hundreds of cities across the country, as well as project the cost of care into the future. This year, our survey found that the annual median cost of long term care services increased an average of 4.5 percent from 2016 to 2017, the second-highest year-over-year increase for nursing homes and home care since the study began in 2004.1
Product Innovation
Only 7.2 million people owned long term care insurance in 2014,2 which is less than 10 percent of the 108 million people in the U.S. over the age of 50.3 This illustrates the gaping need and huge opportunity that exists to provide products that can help consumers along the entire spectrum of needs.
Long term care insurance—both individual and group–has been and continues to be one of Genworth’s core solutions to meet the financial challenges of aging. We offer the ability to purchase a smaller, simpler policy to a much more comprehensive policy designed to meet a range of needs and budgets. Our group solution offers portable coverage and the option for relatives of employees, including spouses, parents, grandparents and adult children, to take advantage of the group pricing even if the employee chooses not to enroll.
For older Americans who did not plan ahead, or could not qualify for long term care insurance and now find themselves in immediate need of care, we offer our Income Assurance Immediate Need Annuity, a medically underwritten SPIA. This annuity provides guaranteed monthly income for the rest of the care recipient’s life and can be used to help pay for long term care or any other expense.
In 2018 we will broaden our portfolio to include a single premium deferred annuity. This annuity will have a free withdrawal provision that could be used to help fund a long term care insurance policy. It will also include a medical care facility waiver that, when a person is confined to a medical care facility, would allow for a one-time 50 percent free withdrawal to help cover out-of-pocket long term care or other expenses.
Regulatory and Legislative Reform
As the carrier with the largest in-force block of long term care insurance business, we are leveraging our extensive experience to influence regulatory change that will help make long term care funding a reality for more Americans. Specifically, we are proposing a new regulatory framework for new policies that provides for annual and early single-digit adjustments (up or down) to premiums as needed, similar to the way other lines of insurance, such as health care, are rated. This would result in smaller, more frequent adjustments of premiums (up or down), which would minimize the need for large, unpredictable premium increases in the future and be easier for regulators, carriers and policyholders to manage.
We are also supportive of incentives proposed by public policy groups to make long term care funding options more accessible to consumers. Some of these proposals include allowing penalty-free withdrawals from retirement accounts to purchase lower-cost long term care insurance products, providing incentives for employers to offer limited-benefit long term care insurance through workplace retirement plans on an opt-out basis, and a universal catastrophic plan to pay for longer duration care as a backstop to private insurance.
Speeding Application to Delivery
We have made and continue to make significant investments in tools and technology to provide a superior experience for our distribution partners, producers and consumers. To simplify and expedite new long term care insurance applications and increase producer efficiency, we recently launched our eSuite of new business tools–an end-to-end electronic process that reduces cycle time by 20 days. Producers using the eSuite of tools have found it provides a simpler, expedited sales experience that is easy to navigate. It also brings convenience and efficiency to producers who work remotely, or do not live near their clients, through the ability to share screens.
Compassionate, Competent Client Service
We are at our best when your clients need us most. Our dedicated employees understand how challenging a long term care situation can be, and their goal is to make the claims experience as smooth as possible.
In short, we want to be an ally for people as they age and for those who love them. Whether protecting our customers through an insurance product, a cash accumulation product or a service that provides timely support, we are passionate about helping people age on their own terms. We also believe in the brokerage general agent (BGA) model and look forward to working with our distribution partners to help their clients better prepare, so that, if they do need care, they will have the luxury of choosing the right caregiving solution for them and accessing those solutions with ease. [LN]
- Genworth 2017 Cost of Care Survey, September 2017.
- The State of Long Term Care Insurance: the Market, Challenges and Future Innovation, National Association of Insurance Commissioners and the Center for Insurance Policy and Research, May 2016
- Getting to Know Americans Age 50+, (Based on 2014 Census Projections), AARP.
