Individual long term care insurance sales were 13% higher in the first half than they were during the comparable period in 2009.

The research team found an association between tobacco industry affiliation and the conclusions of individual studies that fail to link the association. Industry-affiliated studies they noted indicated that smoking protects against the development of AD, while independent studies showed that smoking increased the risk of developing the disease.

According to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI), there are about 24 million people in the world living with dementia, with 4.6 million new cases coming forward every year.he study by Boston University School of Medicine (BUSM) published online in the journal Annals of Neurology, confirms the inverse association of increasing BMI with lower brain volumes in older adults and with younger, middle-aged adults.

New research shows seniors with higher levels of vitamin D demonstrate more youth and vitality as they enjoy longer life spans. A limited number of studies have pointed to the possibility that optimal intake of vitamin D (the “sunshine” vitamin) might help keep our muscles strong and preserve physical function. To help understand this diet-health association, researchers at Wake Forest University studied the relationship between vitamin D status and physical function in a group of relatively healthy seniors living in Memphis, TN and Pittsburgh, PA.

Topics covered include:

• Alzheimer’s Disease—Will It Become An Epidemic?
• The Fight for Bettering LTC
• Mental Health Issues of Particular Groups: The Dichotomies of Caregiving: Mental Health Challenges of Informal Caregivers
and more.

PPACA imposes several new recordkeeping and reporting requirements on long term care facilities related to direct care staffing.

Optimism remains our life blood. In LIMRA’s “LTCI: An Industry Reflects 2009,” the top three reasons for optimism were (1) demographics, (2) increasing consumer awareness, and (3) opportunities at the worksite. The boomer age wave is upon us. Consumer awareness—formed from financial uncertainty and caregiving distress—is eating away at denial. Worksite sales—fueled by the need for alternative cost-effective benefits and liberalized underwriting concessions—continues to outpace the relative growth of individual sales.

Now, what should you say to connect to these growing sales?

More women receive privately paid for care at home for lingering health issues with more obtaining this care at older ages than men according to a new report from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. Nearly 60 percent of those receiving care were women with over 80 percent age 75 or older the study found.

The older population is becoming more racially and ethnically diverse as the overall minority population grows and experiences great longevity. In fact, the percentage of older persons, which was 16 percent of the older population in 2000, is expected to grow to 24 percent by 2020. This section provides information on minority elders in the United States.

Presentations from the 2009 Forum include:

• DRA Partnerships - Three Perspectives
• Fibromyalgia - Causes, Consequences and Future Directions - Wickersham
• Challenges Adjudicating the Younger Claimant
• Cardiovascular Disease - LTC Underwriting Perspective - Mastropolo
• Cardiovascular Disease - LTC Underwriting Perspective - Margolis
• Three Perspectives for Spotting Fraud and Keeping It Off the Books

The cost of home care appears to be increasing far less rapidly than the cost of nursing home care, according to Genworth Financial Inc. (NYSE:GNW). Nursing home rates have climbed at an annual median rate of 4.5% for private nursing home rooms over the past 5 years, while the annual median increase has been just 1.7% for licensed home health aides and 2.4% for licensed homemaker services over that same period, according to Genworth, Richmond, Va.

Underwriting older age applicants is certainly difficult from a medical perspective. The effects of aging present difficult and sometimes unique disease entities not present in the everyday population, much less in combination with each other. While no one expects an older age applicant to be in perfect health, an underwriter has to differentiate pathological disease—that will cause premature mortality—from the normal aging process. In addition, a key part of underwriting is functional status of an older age applicant.

The rate for all causes of dementia in people age 90 and older is 18.2% annually and significantly increases with age in both men and women. A new report, called “The 90+ Study,” is one of only a few to examine dementia in this age group, and the first to have sufficient participation of centenarians.

Stress levels among caregivers were high for both younger (age 45 to 64) and older (age 65+) boomers, found the study by the Hartford Financial Services Group Inc. and ComPsych Corporation, Chicago, an employee assistance program administrator.

Purchasers of true group long-term care insurance tended to be slightly older in 2009 and an increasing number selected less costly policy features according to the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance (AALTCI) annual study of group (employer sponsored) long-term care insurance. The organization’s research was based on an analysis of nearly 66,000 new purchasers.

Overview of the last Geneva Association Health and Ageing Conference held in Warsaw in November 2009.

LGBT Baby Boomers have withstood many years of discrimination, and say their approach to retirement and aging has been shaped by these experiences.

This paper concentrates on both the non-motor symptoms whose management can reduce the likelihood of claim and the length of claim and the recent research suggesting changing patterns of PD mortality.

According to government data, some 7.5 million individuals currently receive extended periods of care at home because of acute illness, permanent disability, or long-term health conditions. The nation’s annual cost for care in 2010 is projected to exceed $59 billion.

Understanding long term care insurance terminology is often the cause of great confusion and frustration for advisors as well as consumers.

Much of the benefits terminology was derived from the long term disability industry, where it also bewildered applicants. Today, many LTC policies use simpler and more understandable concepts, but assessing the terms carefully is still essential, because terms differ between contracts and they may involve tradeoffs from traditional comprehensive LTC insurance.

The American Academy of Actuaries told state regulators it will be developing long term care morbidity tables.

Members of the Accident and Health Working Group at the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, Kansas City, Mo., heard about the LTC insurance valuation morbidity tables project early this week during a working group teleconference.

Long-term care specialists—including consumer advocates, providers, public officials, and policy experts—who participated in a national survey generally agreed on the need for long-term care reform. Despite some differences, key constituent groups supported the establishment of government-sponsored financing strategies, a shift toward home- and community-based care, offering payment incentives to improve quality, and more effective regulation of nursing homes, home health care agencies, and assisted living facilities.

Broad health care reform legislation being considered by Congress would effect a major change in the way the United States finances long-term care. The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act would create a voluntary national long-term care insurance program. As lawmakers debate the potentially far-reaching proposal, they may learn from the experiences of other developed nations and from recent experiments in the U.S.

A series of publications provide a history of the generations born since the early 1900s. The profiles provide a snapshot of four generations. They look at demographics and, perhaps more importantly, the events occurring during their teen and young adult years that influenced their values and their viewpoints.

Newsletter of the SOA's Long Term Care section.

Stock prices have reduced retirement funds by nearly 50 percent for the Baby Boomer Generation. With tens of millions approaching retirement, can long-term care provide a cost effective solution?

This edition looks at recent evidence concerning the frequency and burden of falls, the value of exercise programmes and the prediction of future falls.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 included some key provisions that addressed for the first time the taxation of combination annuity plans featuring long-term care insurance (LTCI). The rules apply only to nonqualified annuities coupled with tax-qualified long-term care riders.

The largest open long-term care insurance claim has surpassed $1.2 million in paid benefits, according to a just-released report from the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance. The claimant, a woman, purchased coverage at age 43, paying an annual premium of $1,800. Three years later her claim began and has continued for almost 12 years. [Note: Payment of policy premiums ceases when an individual is receiving policy benefits.]

With the H1N1 flu spreading globally, the World Health Organization (WHO) has declared it a pandemic. This marks the first global flu epidemic in 41 years with reports of the flu coming from Mexico, U.S., Australia and many more locations. In response to this development, members from the Society of Actuaries (SOA) are advising businesses to revisit and/or create business continuity and preparedness plans.

With the flowering of “financial services,” life insurers are now seriously questioning the appropriateness of cumbersome, time-consuming and blatantly customer-unfriendly screening tests.

Some 400,000 individuals purchased long-term care insurance protection in 2008 according to a just-released report. The overwhelming majority (84%) of individual buyers in 2008 were younger than age 65 and three-fourths (76%) selected a more affordable approach to this protection by opting for coverage for a specific number of years.

The annual study conducted by the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance, the industry's professional trade organization, analyzed data on 215,000 buyers of individual long-term care insurance protection.

Presentations made at the 5th Geneva Association Health & Aging Conference No: 348 November 2008.

Presentation by Transamerica Reinsurance's David Wylde at the 2009 MUD Group meeting.

Recognizing that government can't pay the bill for long-term care, federal and a growing number of state tax codes now offer tax incentives to encourage Americans to take personal responsibility for their future long-term care needs. (The American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance)

As 2008 came to an end, many of us found ourselves wondering what the adjective 'long-term' means in the context of wildly gyrating stock markets and the day-to-day uncertainty this turbulence has created for countries around the globe."

http://www.towersperrin.com/tp/showdctmdoc.jsp?country=global&url=Tillin...

John Hancock has announced the results of an in-depth study of the 2008 costs of long-term care (LTC), which found that LTC costs have been increasing in line with inflation in recent years.

Presentation from SOA Annual Meeting in Orlando, October 2008.

The Pension Protection Act of 2006 includes some important tax rules affecting combination plans that feature life or annuity plans coupled with long-term care insurance (LTCI). Many of these rules will become effective Jan. 1, 2010. In some cases, the rules will be applicable to policies on the books prior to that time. Among the benefits resulting from these new rules, the most notable would seem to be the clarification of tax treatment of annuity/LTCI combination products.

Price rollbacks throughout the U.S. economy during the past year did not apply to long-term care service providers, according to the 2009 MetLife Market Survey of Nursing Home, Assisted Living, Adult Day Services, and Home Care Costs. Private room nursing home rates rose 3.3% to $219 per day or $79,935 per year, while assisted living also rose 3.3% on average to $3,131 per month. Home health care aides now cost an average of $21 per hour, a 5% increase; adult day services run $67 per day, a 4.7% increase.

...from the Long Term Care International Forum.

It is no secret that the long-term care insurance (LTCI) industry is having trouble offering products with a convincing and an attractive value proposition. In a recently released report, Conning Research & Consulting, Inc. reminds us that from an economics point of view, in order for a consumer to purchase a product, the product must 1) satisfy a perceived need or a want for which the consumer is personally responsible and 2) have an acceptable price. It appears that there are large gaps between LTCI consumers and insurers in both of these areas. (link updated)