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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I bought into the federal LTC plan at the age of 24 (now in my 30s). I have an unlimited policy with a 4% inflation protection which is currently just shy of $150/day. premium is currently $93/month which will go up to $115 in 2025 and $141 in 2026. i am under 40 so the IRS allows me to use my HSA money toward LTC premiums up to a certain amount (it's not much).

i think i will weather the storm and ride this one out. but, the plan is to not need until much later on in life. the thing that makes me want to hold on to it is because i don't see many options right now for unlimited policies.[/quote]

The question is how many of those policies did your insurer write and will they be solvent when and if you need to use it. The reason the policies aren't written is that they bankrupted the initial LTC insurers [/quote]

I think, by and large, the big insurance companies have stopped offering unlimited policies and restructured their LTC plans. But, this plan is a federal LTC plan. if the insurer goes insolvent...eh, i think there would be much bigger problems to worry about. too big to fail, so to speak. but, it is a worry of mine since i don't anticipate needing it until much later in life. [/quote]

I thought the fed plan was a disaster.  The rates have gone way up over the years.  [/quote]

The federal plan has been suspended for new enrollees.

https://www.ltcfeds.com/

It’s the “federal” plan, but it’s run by a private company, John Hancock, with no government subsidy. John Hancock is allowed to raise rates every 7 years. Last time they increased premiums, it was an average of 83% per enrollee. This says premium increases were supposed to go out last fall, but I don’t know if that happened.

I looked at this plan when I was a Fed, but I didn’t get it because there’s no assurance that the premiums won’t become uneconomic by the time you actually need the coverage. LTC insurance isn’t really “insurance,” it’s more like a dental insurance, which turns out to be a forced savings plan, in most cases.

https://www.farrlawfirm.com/long-term-care-insurance/why-did-the-opm-suspend-its-long-term-care-insurance-program-for-2-years/#:~:text=Why%20Did%20This%20Happen%3F,again.

https://federalnewsnetwork.com/benefits/2023/09/prepare-to-brace-yourself-for-the-return-of-federal-long-term-care-insurance-options/

John Hatton Well, it’s a good question. Just to start with, where the federal long term care insurance program is, they’ve been operating on seven year master contracts between OPM and the insurer John Hancock that will allow premiums to go up every seven years. And they have enrollees when they enrolled in the program. We’re told that these were the premiums, that they hope to stay stable. Now they can go up on a class basis to insure the solvency of the fund. But there’s that kind of fine print contractual language, but it’s gone up to such a degree that it’s hard to think any reasonable person could have predicted such a high premium increase. And so this newest contract renewal started in May. Enrollees are going to start receiving letters indicating their premium increases this week, the week of Sept.11, and then they will have 60 days to make choices on whether to accept that premium increase or to take some reduced coverage as low as just getting coverage for the amount of premiums they paid. We don’t know the total amount, OPM has not released that. They had released that in the past. The last time premiums went up, they went up as high as 126% and 83% on average. So I’m expecting another huge premium increase, which is going to be very difficult for people to accept.
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