A New York man is pushing back against the long-term care insurance industry, after watching the premium on his policy climb at a time when millions of Americans are facing similarly steep hikes. His own premium recently went up by 18.5 percent this year, an increase he says is part of a much larger pattern affecting policyholders across the country.
He and his wife signed up for the plan 23 years ago, hoping that the cost of their future care would not fall on the next generation. They never expected increases on this scale, all of which, he pointed out, were approved by New York State before they reached his bill.
Stretched out over the course of four years, he said, the increases add up to nearly a 100 percent rise, well beyond the rate of inflation. For many seniors living on fixed incomes, he warned, hikes of that magnitude are simply unaffordable.
He described friends and neighbors, middle-class people, who were forced to drop their policies altogether and now find themselves in their 80s without any of the coverage they had counted on. The fear is that people who paid into these plans for decades are being priced out just as they become most likely to need care.
Becky Prevy, executive director of the Association on Aging in New York, said his experience is far from unusual. The problems with long-term care insurance policies, she noted, have been documented for decades, and an aging population means a growing number of seniors are likely to run into them.
She pointed out that the fastest-growing segment of the population in New York State is people over the age of 80, and that more than 70 percent of them will need some form of long-term care during their lifetime. Her advice is to consult an elder-care attorney before signing up for any plan, and to look for unbiased information available at aging offices throughout the state.