Open Enrollment starts for Federal Employees’ LTC Insurance Plan – what consumers need to know
March 31, 2011 by Be Safe Insure
Filed under COBRA, Health, Insurance
This is a guest post by Jesse Slome, Executive Director of the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance.
For more information, please visit http://www.aaltci.org
The first major open enrollment for the nation’s largest group long-term care insurance program begins April 4 (and runs until June 24).
Millions of federal employees are eligible, as are postal service employees, active military — spouses and (for the first time) same-sex partners.
The Federal plan has ‘simplified’ health underwriting (basically 9, Yes or No "knock out" questions). That makes the program very attractive for many.
But, as a group plan, there are no discounts for good health, and no discounts for couples or partners when both apply (and 70% of long-term care insurance is purchased by couples). Attached is a summary which includes rate comparisons from our 2011 LTC Insurance Price Index. Couples (especially) who can health qualify for private long-term care insurance can generally obtain equal coverage for less money. They can even get better coverage for less money(as we show some scenarios including the Shared Care option which is extremely valuable). That’s an important message I hope you’ll convey to educate consumers.
The Federal plan currently has over 200,000 participants … and I hope that doubles with the new Open Enrollment.
During the last major enrollment (2002), thanks to all the added awareness, sales of private long-term care insurance were higher than normal. Obviously, we hope that happens again too.
If you have questions, please call the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance.
The Association now has over 3,200 long-term care insurance professionals who can be found using our Online Look-Up.
Jesse Slome, Executive Director
American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance
