Long-Term Care Insurance: Partnership Policies

The Partnership for Long-Term Care is a program being offered by some states as a serious incentive to purchase long-term care insurance. The program uses a combination of public and private money to pay for care.

It offers one of the most promising solutions to financing long-term care for the increasing number of aging Americans.

The Partnership Program was initially offered in 4 states:

California • Connecticut • Indiana • New York

The success of the Partnership Programs in these original states has led to Congress passing legislation that allows other states to offer the program.

Contact us if you would like to know if this program is now available in your state.

Standardized Requirements of Each Partnership Policy

The program requires standardized benefits that make the Partnership policies a unique consideration. Partnership policies must:

• Include inflation protection

• Offer protection against unreasonable rate increases

• Require agents offering Partnership policies to be specifically trained and receive Partnership Certfication.

• Include Care Coordination.

• Allow claims to be made even if the policyholder moves from the state in which the policy was issued. However, in order to benefit from the asset protection component of the policy, the claimant would need to move back to the issuing state. The exception is Indiana and Connecticut, who have a reciprocity agreement.

• Protect you if your state decides to discontinue the Partnership Program: your policy remains contractually protected as long as premiums are paid.

Partnership Companies Are Superior

The partnership Program policies are private long-term care insurance, underwritten by a select few, high-quality insurance companies.

These companies must go through a stringent approval process in order to offer Partnership policies. A company willing to become approved is making a major commitment to the LTC insurance industry. This commitment is what makes companies offering Partnership policies superior to other LTC insurance companies.

How the Partnership Program Works

Partnership policies contain an asset protection component that allows people to shelter some or all of their assets by linking the purchase of private LTC insurance with future eligibility for Medicaid, the welfare program. (Medi-Cal in California).

A policyholder first uses their Partnership policy benefits to pay for long-term care expenses. If and when the benefits of the policy are exhausted, the policyholder will become eligible for Medicaid without being required to first spend all of their assets on care.

The Partnership Program essentially allows you to keep some or all of your assets, without being required to totally deplete your money paying for long-term care.