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Just read this article:
https://www.whitecoatinvestor.com/financial-lessons-father-long-term-care-insurance/
about 10 lessons learned when the author was dealing with obtaining benefits from his father’s LTC insurance company. My parents had policies they bought decades before their deaths. My sister was the DPOA finance so I was not privy to the details of the policies, nor any difficulties she may of had trying to access their benefits.
We don’t have policies, but I figured this information may be valuable to other Humble Dollar readers who do.
Here is a good article on why Long Term Care Insurance companies are struggling financially and why getting LTC now is harder. People who have LTC keep paying premiums without defaulting because they see value. Delinquency rates are only 1%.
https://kffhealthnews.org/news/article/dying-broke-why-long-term-care-insurance-falls-short/
We went through this in 2023-24, helping my husband’s stepfather access LTC benefits for my mother-in-law, who had Alzheimer’s. We handled accessing the website, and my husband got on conference calls with him and the LTC provider when there were questions. He would not have been able to handle it by himself. He’s in his 80s, slipping a bit cognitively himself, not technologically proficient, and gets stressed out easily.
It was pretty time-consuming for awhile there, and my husband and I had to stay on top of invoices, care notes, authorizations, all the stuff mentioned in the article. I will say that even though it was cumbersome and sometimes the paperwork was slow, it all worked out, the insurance company staff were helpful and kind, and there was absolutely no sense that they were trying to stall or avoid paying. I wouldn’t call it a “good” experience, but because we stayed on it, things came out OK.
Excellent article. Thanks. I found the comments to be very helpful.
I had seen this also. It is quite the read – I think there are quite a few “take-aways” in it, especially, in my view, how pursuit of LTC reimbursement can potentially become almost a full time job.
It appears the insurance companies are trying to string out the reimbursement process as much as possible hoping the insured’s family member will give up
Thanks so much for posting the link to this article. I’ve heard for decades about the hassles of getting insurance companies to honor LTCI claims. From the specific details in this article readers will know what to look out for.