What You Need to Know
- More than 60% of middle- and upper-income consumers surveyed said they want long-term care insurance.
- Many want to talk to financial planners or insurance agents about the topic.
- When presented with prototypes for alternatives to traditional long-term care insurance, they preferred the one most like traditional LTCI.
U.S. insurers may be leery about writing new long-term care insurance policies, but many consumers are eager to buy coverage.
About 63% of the middle-income consumers who participated in a recent Certification for Long-Term Care survey said they were interested in buying long-term care insurance. Sixteen percent said they were very likely to buy coverage, and 29% said they would like to talk to a financial planner or insurance agent about long-term care planning.
Only 61% of the upper-income participants were interested in buying LTCI coverage, but 24% indicated that they were very likely to buy coverage and 25% wanted to talk to a long-term care planner.
What it means: Both upper- and middle-income consumers are thinking hard about the cost of long-term care.
Eileen Tell, the CEO of ET Consulting, one of the firms that managed the survey, said she thinks the results show long-term care planners need to work harder to reach middle-income consumers.
“Across all incomes, consumers need a plan for long-term care,” Tell said.
The survey: Certification for Long-Term Care — the Charlotte, North Carolina-based manager of the CLTC professional designation program — commissioned the survey.
ET Consulting worked on the survey with Genworth’s CareScout long-term care services arm and Oliver Wyman, a consulting firm.
The survey team plans to present the survey results this week at a CLTC meeting in Charlotte.
The survey team used an online system to reach 1,050 U.S. residents ages 35 through 74. They classified participants with income of about 67% of the median for their age group to 200% of the median as middle income and participants with income over 200% of the median as upper income.
The current median household income for Americans of all ages is about $80,000.
The survey team focused mainly on the middle- and upper-income participants’ thoughts about long-term care.
