How To Choose A Long-term Care Insurance Company

Author: Duane Lipham, CLTC

Becoming familiar with the foundational features and options of a good LTCI policy requires taking some time to educate yourself in advance of making your final decision. This will help ensure that you get the policy that will best fit your particular needs.

Once that is done, the next step is to find the insurance provider that will suit you best. Since there are several LTCI carriers to choose from it can seem confusing at first. So here are a few suggestions for selecting a company that offers a quality product and is worthy of your trust in the many years ahead.

Although there are several companies who offer LTCI there is a handful that have outstandingly distinguished themselves over a long period of time as financially solid and rate-stable carriers with an excellent customer service record. Unfortunately, we see stories in the media these days of some companies whose record in these areas is being seriously challenged.

So how do you find a company that is worthy of your trust? The first thing to look for in selecting a quality company is the financial rating . The top companies have an "A" or higher rating with services such as A.M. Best, Standard & Poors, etc. They also have a history of excellent customer service, with extremely low customer complaint ratios. There are several to choose from that have been in the long-term care industry for 20 - 30 years, indicating their commitment to LTCI for the long haul. And finally, look for companies that have been able to maintain rate stability, without the need to increase premium rates on existing customers in the past.

If you are in excellent health, any of these companies would be a fine choice. But if you have some health issues that are not serious enough to render you uninsurable at this point, but at the same time will also most likely not allow you to qualify for "Preferred" rates, the company you choose can have a significant impact on your premium.

The reason for this is that each company has it's own underwriting procedures that it uses for rating policyholders. And these procedures can vary greatly from one company to the next. For instance, one company will not issue a "Preferred" rating to anyone who uses even one blood pressure medication, while others will allow the use of up to four of these medications and still award the highest rate classification.

And if you have more serious illnesses, the difference in the way individual carriers treat those issues can be even more dramatic. In other words, some health conditions that one carrier may accept may be cause for rejection by another provider altogether.

Here is where having the assistance of a knowledgeable, experienced agent who can choose from several top companies in the LTCI field, can be a real asset in finding the company that is not only trustworthy and reliable, but also best fits your particular needs and health history.