Joe Giacobello's List: Long Term Care

• This is upsetting for consumers, many of whom bought policies in the belief that premiums for their individual policies wouldn’t change. But insurers may seek increases for large pools of policies over all, and have been doing so.
• Thomas J. McInerney, Genworth’s chief executive, said in a recent phone interview that the industry over all made incorrect assumptions when it set premiums for older policies — particularly, those issued before 2002 — and didn’t set rates high enough. For instance, far fewer people than anticipated let their policies lapse. And interest rates in recent years have been much lower than expected, making it difficult for companies to earn adequate returns on invested premiums.
• The company needs premium increases of 50 percent, on average, for the older policies, to break even, he said.
• Howard S. Krooks, an elder law specialist in Boca Raton, Fla., said he generally advised clients that if the increase was 20 percent or less, they should “bite the bullet” and pay it, even if they thought it was unfair.

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