New York Life long-term care inforce rate increase information.

Long-term care insurance is an important component of an overall financial strategy and the potential for experiencing a long-term care event increases as you age. Your long-term care insurance policy continues to offer valuable protection to help ensure that your long-term care needs can be met without sacrificing other financial goals.

The information on this page is designed to help New York Life policy owners facing a potential long-term care insurance premium increase understand the reasons for the increase, its potential effect on your policy, your options, and the efforts we are making to help reduce the financial impact of the increase.

Please note that any increases are subject to regulatory approval in most states, so the timing increases are implemented will vary by state. 

New York Life’s decision and our commitment

For more than 30 years, New York Life has been helping protect policy owners and their families from the financial burden of a long-term care event. Our goal is to protect as many people as possible from a future long-term care need and to be there for our policy owners when they need us most. 

As a mutual company, New York Life is committed to serving our policy owners each and every day.  As a mutual, we are accountable to our policy owners.  To uphold our responsibilities, we routinely monitor the performance of our long-term care insurance policies. After an analysis of our long-term care experience, we determined there was a need to increase premiums on two older inforce policy series (generally issued before 2014) to reflect the claims expected on those policies.

Throughout this process, we will provide the information you and your agent need to ensure you make well-informed decisions about your coverage, and offer a dedicated customer service team to answer questions and help you explore your options, and pursue several measures to help reduce the impact of the increase on policy owners. 

Which policies will potentially be impacted?

A premium increase has been requested on the two policy series listed below:

Lifetime Premium Guarantee¹: 
In states where the full amount of the premium increase requested is granted for a policy series, we will guarantee that New York Life will never increase premiums again on that policy series.  We believe that we are the first insurer to offer a lifetime premium guarantee of this type. Policy owners who are eligible for the guarantee will receive a policy endorsement stating their premiums are guaranteed after the increase is implemented. The guarantee will only apply in states where the full increase requested is granted and only after the full increase is implemented.

¹ Any plan changes or benefit increase option elections, including accepting inflation offers and/or increasing benefits, may be subject to an increased premium.

Attained Age Carve-Out:
We proposed that all policy owners who reach the age of 74 by January 1, 2020 be excluded from the premium increase.

Reduced Increase at Older Ages:
We proposed that all policy owners who are between the ages of 69 to 73 as of January 1, 2020 receive a lower premium increase than policy owners 68 and younger.

Benefit Reduction Options: 
Policy owners may also have the option to reduce their benefits to reduce the impact of the increase.  Where applicable, policy owner notification letters will include up to two personalized benefit reduction options. Potential options to consider are reducing the maximum daily benefit, reducing the benefit period, or cancelling or modifying riders, such as inflation protection.

We believe that New York Life is the only company to propose a premium guarantee as part of our regulatory filings and only one of a few companies that has offered any form of an attained age carve-out. Since our requests are subject to review by the state departments of insurance, it’s possible they may not approve our requests.    

We believe these proposals are important for several reasons:

We recommend

That you do not make any changes to your policy related to this increase until you receive the official notification confirming whether your policy is subject to an increase and informing you about the amount of any premium increase.

In addition to the proposals described above, we will also provide a number of options to help reduce the impact of an increase by adjusting coverage (reducing benefits, or removing or modifying riders). If applicable, these customized options will be available in the notification letters you will receive approximately 90 days before an increase is implemented. Once the information about how this increase may impact your policy is available, your New York Life agent will be prepared to discuss these options in detail. Or you may call our LTC Premium Change Customer Care Team at 1-800-890-7798 Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm CST.

The process of increasing premiums

New York Life  submitted formal requests to the insurance regulators in each state, providing an actuarial basis for our request to increase premiums. The regulators review our requests based on their criteria for granting or allowing an increase. In some cases, regulators may not grant the full increase we request, they may require us to implement it in phases, or they may deny our request.

Specific details will become available after our request is reviewed by the state department of insurance in the respective policy issue state.

It is also important to note that we cannot increase premiums on individual policy owners. Any premium increase is requested in accordance with the terms of your policy, which means that we can only increase premiums on a class basis. 

Timing and the notification process 

The timing of the premium increase implementation will depend on when state regulators respond to our requests for an increase.

The first policy owners receiving an increase will not be notified until Q1 2021 at the earliest with increases taking effect approximately 90 days later. 

The entire process is likely to take several years and is dependent on when states review, acknowledge, or approve the increase.

All policy owners receiving a premium increase will be notified by mail approximately 90 days before their increase takes effect. If you have a New York Life agent, he or she will also be notified about your premium increase and will be available to discuss it with you and help you evaluate your options. If you do not have an agent but would like to speak with one, please call 1-800-890-7798 and our team will help connect you with an agent.

We are here to help

We remain committed to helping protect our policy owners from the risk of a long-term care event. We are also dedicated to being there for you throughout the premium change process and providing the information you need to ensure you make well-informed decisions about your coverage.  Your New York Life agent is available and ready to help should you have any questions. 

Thank you for providing us with the opportunity to serve your long-term care coverage needs. If you have questions not addressed here, please contact your agent or our LTC Premium Change Customer Care Team at 1-800-890-7798 Monday to Friday, 8am to 6pm CST.  

Please view the policy owner FAQs for more information

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