Another Company Limits Its LTC Insurance Sales

Genworth Financial is taking several of its long-term care insurance options off the table.

As of July 29, they stopped selling: lifetime coverage policies for people with family histories of Alzheimer's and other chronic conditions; 10-pay policies, which lets beneficiaries pay 10 bigger payments for a paid-up policy; and 40% spousal/partner discounts for couples who sign up together, the Chicago Sun Times reported.

Genworth is following the footsteps of Prudential and MetLife, both of which exited the LTC insurance market in recent months. 

Analysts have urged consumers to buy policies while they still can rather than rely on Medicaid in the future.

This gets to be a hard decisions for some. I have heard some backlash in end of life discussions where, just at the time a benefit like this might kick in, is also the time when a person's health has deteriorated to a point that they may choose less treatment not more. And so they opt out of wanting a policy.

By the way, there is an alternative called the Assurance Benefit where you can use value in your life insurance policy to pay for long term care needs.