No one wants to spend his retirement life in a long-term facility. However, the odds are that you will require some type of long-term care at old age. Statistics show that about 69% of people over 65 years of age will need long-term assistance from insurance companies.
Long-term care provides various essential care services such as nursing homes, assistance in activities of daily life (ADLs), in-home health care, and assisted living facilities. All such services can add up to more than $100,000/year, and long-term care insurance policies are there to fill up those costs and prevent any financial crisis.
If you look at the long-term care insurance companies, you would find that there are dozens of them but not every company is the ideal one for your care plan. Only a few companies meet the criteria of the best insurance companies. Some worst companies have stopped selling insurance while some are still working.
If you are interested in buying long-term care insurance, you should avoid these companies
Five deficient insurance companies
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Genworth Financial
Genworth was a major player in the long-term care insurance market, but now they only sell policies through their employers or directly to consumer channels.
The company faced a class-action lawsuit that was settled for $24.5 million. It was because the company told its customers that they would not increase the rates, but it finally did as much as 150%. The company increased the premiums and forced the customers to either pay or stop paying and end their policy.
New York Life
Though endorsed by AARP, New York does offer a long-term care policy. It’s among the most expensive long-term care insurance, roughly twice the amount compared to other companies.
Moreover, if you fail to qualify for top-tier classification, you will not get all benefits.
AARP
It has always been a trusted name for the senior population. They offer a detailed guideline for retirement life and various benefits for the seniors. The company has also created an active community for seniors to communicate and learn from each other.
We have added it to the worst insurance companies list because of its partnership with New York Life’s long-term care insurance product. Therefore, if you buy an insurance policy from AARP, be careful with the long-term care insurance product because it is as worse as the New York Life insurance.
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CalPERS
Currently, CalPERS is not offering a long-term care insurance program as it has suspended the open enrollment.
There are fewer chances that CalPERS will start the program again, but if it starts, you must know that the company was subjected to a class-action lawsuit. The actual cause of the lawsuit was that the company hiked the program rates up to 85% in 2015 and 2016.
The company has again approved a 77% increase in rates for the current LTC customers. So, you should be careful if the company starts a long-term care insurance program again.
MassMutual
On the whole, we would say that MassMutual is too expensive. Regarding its pricing for long-term care insurance, MassMutual was never competitive in the field. It was one of the ten insurance companies that were offering traditional long-term care insurance policies.
Traditional policies were difficult to maintain because of decreasing profits and resulted in many companies leaving the market. As of Jan 28, 2021, the company will no longer offer long-term care insurance. However, if you already bought a policy, the company will continue to honor the policy.