Long Term Care Insurance Factoids

The following information comes from the American Association for Long Term Care Insurance, 2015 LTCi Sourcebook.  It is based upon industry-wide sales of long term care insurance during 2014.

Elimination Period: This can best be thought of as the policy deductible.  It is the number of days of benefit eligibility for which an insured person will not receive benefits.  For most long term care insurance policies, the Elimination Period must only be met one time.

30 days or less: 0.2% of policies purchased in 2014.

31-89 days: 1.5%.

90-100 days: 93.6%.

More than 100 days: 4.7%.

Important: There are about three different ways of counting Elimination Period days.  Know how your policy counts them. 

Policies Purchased by Benefit Period (Note. The Benefit Period is the minimum number of years that a policy can pay benefits.  See the July, 2015 eNewsletter for a more detailed explanation.):

Less than 3 years: 8.0%.

3 years: 40.2%.

4 years: 19.5%.

5 years: 13.3%.

6-10 years: 18.9%.

Lifetime: 0.1%.

Policies Purchased by Age of Applicant:

Under age 35: 5.3%.

Ages 35-44: 6.5%.

Ages 45-54: 25.0%.

Ages 55-64: 55.2%.

Ages 65-74: 7.8%.

Age 75 or Better: 0.2%

Percent of Applicants Who are Declined

12%: Below age 50

17%: Ages 50-59

25%: Ages 60-69

44%: Ages 70-79

My overall decline rate runs around 5%-10%, largely due to using my pre-qualification checklist.