Scared away by horrible reviews of LTC insurance

[ltcadviser]

Scott, the OP is concerned about making it difficult to collect your benefits, i.e., getting paid once you ARE claim eligible. Sure, with all policies you need to submit a written plan of care and be certified as chronically ill to get your claim approved. But let’s not get it twisted Scott. Once on claim, reimbursement policies require an extra hurdle that cash indemnity policies do not.

Best cash indemnity options

 

[Mr_Ed]

Scott, the OP is concerned about making it difficult to collect your benefits, i.e., getting paid once you ARE claim eligible. Sure, with all policies you need to submit a written plan of care and be certified as chronically ill to get your claim approved. But let’s not get it twisted Scott. Once on claim, reimbursement policies require an extra hurdle that cash indemnity policies do not.

Best cash indemnity options

My mother-in-law had a "reimbursement" policy and was on claim for 4 years. Do you know how many receipts she had to send to the insurance company every month? NONE. We did send the monthly statement from the assisted living facility each month. It took my wife about 5 minutes, one time per month, to send the monthly statement to John Hancock.

 

[ltcadviser]

Scott, My mother in law is in an assisted living facility. We also have to send in the monthly invoice to Continental (Kanawa). Do you know how many times they tell us they didn’t get the fax? 50%. They are generally 6 weeks behind in payment. Don’t dance around the issue that indemnity is better only because you insist upon selling the stand-alone traditional LTC policies no matter what, and the only way to get indemnity benefits today is through the asset based policies that you refuse to write. If the traditional LTC policies that you insist upon selling had available the 100% cash indemnity option, you would not be taking this stance.

 

[Mr_Ed]

Scott, My mother in law is in an assisted living facility. We also have to send in the monthly invoice to Continental (Kanawa). Do you know how many times they tell us they didn’t get the fax? 50%. They are generally 6 weeks behind in payment. Don’t dance around the issue that indemnity is better only because you insist upon selling the stand-alone traditional LTC policies no matter what, and the only way to get indemnity benefits today is through the asset based policies that you refuse to write. If the traditional LTC policies that you insist upon selling had available the 100% cash indemnity option, you would not be taking this stance.

I've had this stance for a long-time. "Cash indemnity" is NOT inherently better than "Reimbursement". "Cash indemnity" is better if you want to pay a family member to provide care. That's about it.

UNUM and Met and Medamerica sold "cash indemnity" for years and I rarely recommended any of those "cash" products. If I did recommend them it had nothing to do with the "indemnity" feature.

John Hancock never lost any of the monthly statements my wife sent to them for her mother's LTCi claim. NEVER. That's nearly 50 monthly statements! Sorry to hear your chose a below average policy for your mother-in-law.

 

[Tahoe Ray]

I've had this stance for a long-time. "Cash indemnity" is NOT inherently better than "Reimbursement". "Cash indemnity" is better if you want to pay a family member to provide care. That's about it.

UNUM and Met and Medamerica sold "cash indemnity" for years and I rarely recommended any of those "cash" products. If I did recommend them it had nothing to do with the "indemnity" feature.

John Hancock never lost any of the monthly statements my wife sent to them for her mother's LTCi claim. NEVER. That's nearly 50 monthly statements! Sorry to hear your chose a below average policy for your mother-in-law.

If the policies were equal in every way, would you prefer an indemnity or a reimbursement policy?

 

[Mr_Ed]

If the policies were equal in every way, would you prefer an indemnity or a reimbursement policy?

They are never equal in every way.
But, assuming they were equal in every way, there is still an advantage to a reimbursement policy: oversight... supervision... there's another set of eyes making sure the care is being provided.
There's no oversight with a cash indemnity policy.
There's no guarantee the care is being provided.