New Texas Teacher Long-Term Care Insurance Option
September 4, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · 1 Comment
Beginning on September 1 this year, the new long-term care insurance provider for the Texas Teacher Retirement System (TRS) switched from Aetna to Genworth. During open enrollment from September 15 – November 15 this year, teachers will have the option to sign up for this insurance. If you’re thinking about getting long-term care insurance anytime soon, now is the time to take action while you have the greatest number of options.
How do you know if the TRS Genworth group option is right for you?
The first thing to do is to get a quote for the TRS group policy through the Genworth website. To do this, go to www.genworth.com/groupltc For active employees, the group ID is TRS. For retirees, the group ID is TRSRetiree. The access code for both is groupltc.
After you’ve received your quote, you’ll want to go out and shop for individual quotes. Some of the companies in addition to Genworth offering long-term care insurance are John Hancock, MetLife, Prudential, Mass Mutual, Berkshire, and New York Life. You’ll want to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples, so print out the options you selected for the Genworth TRS policy to show to your insurance agent.
If you want an objective second opinion on when you should get long-term care insurance or the “right” amount of long-term care coverage to purchase for your situation, that’s something an independent financial planner like myself can help with.
If you find that the Genworth group TRS program is providing the best pricing and benefits for you, then it’s easy. You’ll want to go ahead and sign up if you’ve decided now is the right time for you to get long-term care insurance.
If you find an individual option could provide superior benefits at the same cost or comparable benefits at a lower cost, you’ll have some additional work to do. You need to go through under-writing and make sure you qualify. You will need to answer some health questions and possibly have an exam. This process can take some time, so you should start now. Only after you’ve been offered coverage through the other company can you really make a decision about which option to choose.
If you’re declined by the other company — good news — you still have the TRS group option. During the initial enrollment period, Genworth is providing a coverage guarantee to active employees. The coverage guarantee is why it’s so important to investigate this group option now if you have any health issues that may prevent coverage on an individual policy. According to the Genworth website, “During your enrollment period, if you are an actively at work employee on the day you apply, and on the day your coverage becomes effective, your coverage is guaranteed without answering any health questions. Also, during this time your spouse will have streamlined underwriting which limits the health questions they´ll have to answer. If you decide to apply after the enrollment period, you will be required to complete a full health questionnaire and go through underwriting. There is a chance that a health condition may prevent you from qualifying for coverage.”
Just to give you one example of this process, I compared the TRS group option for one couple. In this couple’s particular situation, the couple’s group coverage through TRS was going to cost slightly more than purchasing a comparable individual policy through Genworth directly, about the same as through MetLife, and a little less than through John Hancock.
Also of note, in the 3 individual quotes received, the prices were based on 100% of the maximum daily benefit being available for home healthcare vs. 75% for the Genworth group policy. 75% may be enough because home healthcare can be less costly than skilled nursing care. But if you can get 100% for the same or less premium — all other things being equal – it’s definitely the smart move.
In addition to price and features, it’s important to look at the ratings of the insurer, claims-paying experience of policyholders, and length of time the company has been in the long-term care arena. For this couple, it made more sense to go with one of the individual options. However, if they had health issues that would have kept them from qualifying for the individual policy, taking advantage of the TRS group policy during this initial enrollment period would have been a wonderful opportunity. It’s also important to note that everyone’s situation is different, so you need to complete this process for yourself.
Bottom line: if you’re thinking about getting long-term care insurance anytime soon, now is the time to take action while you have the greatest number of options.
For more information on making this decision, you can visit these links:
TRS long-term care information
U.S. Department of Health and Human Services site on long-term care information
Medicare’s site on long-term care
My blog post on 5 claims to watch out for in Long Term Care Insurance
My blog post Long Term Care is a Women’s Issue
Long Term Care is a Woman’s Issue
August 20, 2009 by Jean Keener, CRPC, CFDP · Leave a Comment
I just read a great article in the Journal of Financial Planning about the “Double Jeopardy” women face with long-term care. Written by Mary Quist-Newins with American College, she succinctly describes the increased risks women face as both caregivers and receivers in planning for long-term care.
According to Quist-Newins, the first risk is caregiving. She writes:
For many women, the first exposure to LTC occurs when they provide services or financial support to a loved one. Women are the vast majority of professional or formal caregivers; they’re also the primary deliverers of informal home care. Approximately 75% of those providing home care are female, most often daughters. Women also spend 50% more time giving care than men.
While the high cost of facility care is common knowledge, the costs and consequences associated with giving care in the home are less well known. Consider these stark realities:
- Nationally, more than 6.4 million working women provide direct or indirect caregiving assistance. By 2010, 10.1 million employed women will bear this burden. As boomers age, these numbers could double by 2050.
- According to research from the National Center on Women and Aging, family caregivers lose an average of $659,130 over a lifetime in reduced salary and retirement benefits.
- Forty-four percent of female caregivers report high levels of physical strain or emotional stress, while employed caregivers are more than twice as likely to develop depression.
- Women who become caregivers are nearly three times more likely to end up in poverty and five times more likely to depend exclusively on Social Security.
The second risk is care receiving. In this area, Quist-Newins notes that women’s average consumption of nursing care is 3.7 years vs. 2.2 years for men. “As a result, the average American woman is likely to incur more than double the LTC expense of the average male.”
The last risk Quist-Newins writes about is denial. She cites studies showing that only 18% of women have talked with their spouse about long-term care and only 35% have considered how they will pay for long-term care.
In my practice, long-term care is a frequent topics with my clients 50+. One of the biggest reasons people put off structuring a long-term care plan is competing financial priorities. Because a need for long-term care is not definite and planning for it can involve purchasing costly insurance, it often gets bumped to the bottom of the priority list. And from an immediate financial perspective, that’s sometimes the right decision. This article serves as a good reminder. Even if buying the insurance today doesn’t make sense, creating a plan today that financially prepares us to implement a long-term care plan in the future is a must – especially for women.
If you’d like to read the full article in the Journal of Financial Planning, click here. For other resources on long-term care planning, visit www.medicare.gov/LTCPlanning.