Pennsylvania's Insurance Department will hold a public hearing Thursday prompted by recent consumer backlash to long-term care rate increases, reports Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
The state insurance department is currently considering rate hike proposals from four major life insurance companies, which has sparked outrage among policyholders.
Experts say long-term care insurance premiums set decades ago were too low to sustain future claims. Now insurers argue substantial rate-hikes are necessary to continue providing care for current and future policyholders, according to the article.
However, the proposed premium increases would make long-term care policies unaffordable for some current policyholders.
"A person purchasing a long-term care insurance policy is getting the risk of spending money on long-term care off the table, but a new risk has appeared — that premium increases will take it to unaffordable levels," Anthony Webb, a research director with New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, told Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
In the pending rate cases, Genworth Life Insurance is seeking premium increases ranging from 33 to 130 percent, John Hancock Life Insurance requested increases from 14 to 88 percent, Metropolitan Life Insurance requested increases from 43 to 60 percent and Unum Life Insurance requested increases from 63 to 94 percent.
The state insurance department has invited insurers, industry regulators and consumers to weigh-in Thursday.
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