The long-term care insurance industry is approaching a significant milestone.  "Long-term care insurance companies have incurred nearly $100 Billion in claims," announced Scott Olson, co-founder of LTCShop.com, a national consumer marketplace for long-term care insurance.  The announcement came during a nationwide conference call with insurance professionals.

Long-term care insurance was first sold in the mid-seventies as "nursing home insurance".  It took 18 years for the insurance industry to incur one billion dollars of long-term care claims.  "Now the industry is incurring one billion dollars in claims every six weeks" Olson reported.   (Source: LTCFacts.org)

Each year the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) collects data from over 100 companies that have sold long-term care insurance.  The annual report tallies three critical statistics:  the total number of policies in-force, the number of policyholders that made claims that year, and the total dollar amount of claims incurred that year.  254,910 policyholders made claims in 2014.  The total for 2015 will be closer to 300,000.  

"Hundreds of thousands of families each year benefit from the foresight of owning LTC insurance," Olson shared.  "Family members benefit from LTC insurance as much as the care recipient.  When someone has LTC insurance it enables their family to spend less time providing 'hands-on' care and more time on social interaction and companionship with their loved one."   

"Some consumers have asked us, 'With the increase in claims, will my premium go up?'  Fortunately, this increase in claims was anticipated by the insurers as early as 2007.  That's why many policies have had premium increases over the last few years.  The insurers knew this spike in claims was coming," Olson explained.  

For consumers purchasing policies today there are new regulations.  Forty-one states have enacted strict pricing regulations to help prevent rate increases.  "Everyone purchasing a policy today in one of those 41 states is protected by these new regulations.  Only nine states have not yet enacted these new pricing regulations:    Alaska, Connecticut, Indiana, Massachusetts, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, and Wyoming," Olson concluded.