Voluntary Benefits
NEW BLOG SERIES
Published by Trustmark Voluntary Benefits on June 13th, 2024
By: Brett Daniel, Executive Director of National Accounts, and Kelly Marcus, Regional Sales Director, Capital
Brett:
When it comes to discussing long-term care (LTC) and all the different stakeholder perspectives, we can’t lose sight of the most critical perspective of them all—the consumer.
For anyone who’s experienced the difficulties of receiving long-term care or providing it for a family or loved one, they know that it’s both emotionally and physically taxing for everyone involved. Even when someone has a policy in place to offset the costs of LTC, care becomes a driving force in their life and impacts those around them. Whether it’s adding extra accommodations to your home, rearranging your schedule, filling out paperwork, or simply paying for care, LTC can become all-encompassing when taken from the consumer perspective.
Because of her personal experience with LTC, I believe my colleague and friend, Kelly Marcus, is the perfect person to dive deeper into the consumer perspective. Take it away, Kelly!
Kelly:
When my grandparents became elderly and needed LTC, it's exactly what Brett mentioned it feeling like for my parents: all-encompassing. While my grandparents were old enough to apply for Medicaid assistance, they didn’t qualify for it and did not have enough saved to support their LTC needs. So, to support their LTC journey, my parents had to help them sell as many things as they could, including my grandparent’s family home and assets, to afford care. Not only was that a wake-up call for my parents, but for myself as well—we had a startling awareness that preparing for your future includes planning for LTC. But LTC isn’t just for the elderly consumer, the need to prepare is constant, because LTC needs can happen in the blink of an eye.
For my friend and her 24-year-old daughter, the need for LTC was beyond unexpected. In early 2019, her daughter was in a severe car accident where she was hit head on by an oncoming tractor trailer truck. Because of an accident that wasn’t remotely her fault, she has since been in LTC being treated for injuries that could have ended her life. To make the situation more difficult, she did not have any kind of LTC policy to help with the expenses that came her and her family’s way.
In her circumstance, her injuries are so severe that Medicaid alone would not support her full recovery, which has caused extreme emotional and financial stress for their family. However, in addition to Medicaid eligibility, she is fortunate to have other relatives and friends to help see her through financially, but that isn’t always the case. While it will be a challenging and long recovery period, she is now able to recover slowly over time and has a chance at leading an independent life in the future.
Regardless of one’s financial situation, there’s still no total solution for the emotional distress that occurs in almost every circumstance. But for the average consumer, having LTC protection can be the difference between severe or mild emotional distress, or in more difficult situations, between recovering and not.
Yet, despite there being such an evident need for obtaining LTC benefits, consumers of all ages might not get the coverage they need if we don’t make long-term care solutions simple to understand, convenient to obtain and stress-free to enroll. Making access to care protection difficult or cost-prohibitive is a good way to drive away the consumer. In most cases, that’s exactly the experience consumers face when trying to get standalone LTC coverage—it’s not convenient or affordable, and it is extremely difficult to be approved.
It’s tough to get standalone LTC coverage as the consumer, but that’s not the case with a hybrid product. We know one thing for certain; consumers want LTC coverage regardless of the form it’s in. They don’t necessarily care if it’s standalone or hybrid.
Hybrid life insurance with LTC benefits like Trustmark Life + Care® and Trustmark Universal Life with long-term care offer the consumer the best chance at getting the simplicity, convenience, and reduced stress they’re looking for when obtaining benefits. With hybrid options, the consumer chooses the benefit amount that works for their situation (like most life insurance policies), but it comes with the added security of the LTC benefit consumers desperately want. And the best part? Hybrid options are more likely to be approved—A win for brokers, and an ever-bigger win for the consumers searching for solutions.
Brett:
As Kelly described, we know that long-term care benefits are not a one-size-fits-all solution, so it’s important to recognize general consumer trends as well as individual wants and the need for high-quality LTC products—products that offer a sense of financial security and that are actually feasible to obtain. As a service provider, and for producers and brokers, our understanding of the consumer will not only lead to improved outcomes for us, but for the most important stakeholder there is—the consumer.
Next up, we will be discussing voluntary LTC through the eyes of the employer, discussing their perspective on the need to offer solutions, the importance of educating employees, and the benefits that can come from offering LTC voluntary solutions.
To stay up to date on other important LTC legislative updates from Trustmark Voluntary Benefits, be sure to follow us on our LinkedIn and X.
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Brett:
When it comes to discussing long-term care (LTC) and all the different stakeholder perspectives, we can’t lose sight of the most critical perspective of them all—the consumer.
For anyone who’s experienced the difficulties of receiving long-term care or providing it for a family or loved one, they know that it’s both emotionally and physically taxing for everyone involved. Even when someone has a policy in place to offset the costs of LTC, care becomes a driving force in their life and impacts those around them. Whether it’s adding extra accommodations to your home, rearranging your schedule, filling out paperwork, or simply paying for care, LTC can become all-encompassing when taken from the consumer perspective.
Because of her personal experience with LTC, I believe my colleague and friend, Kelly Marcus, is the perfect person to dive deeper into the consumer perspective. Take it away, Kelly!
Kelly:
LTC stories
When my grandparents became elderly and needed LTC, it's exactly what Brett mentioned it feeling like for my parents: all-encompassing. While my grandparents were old enough to apply for Medicaid assistance, they didn’t qualify for it and did not have enough saved to support their LTC needs. So, to support their LTC journey, my parents had to help them sell as many things as they could, including my grandparent’s family home and assets, to afford care. Not only was that a wake-up call for my parents, but for myself as well—we had a startling awareness that preparing for your future includes planning for LTC. But LTC isn’t just for the elderly consumer, the need to prepare is constant, because LTC needs can happen in the blink of an eye.
For my friend and her 24-year-old daughter, the need for LTC was beyond unexpected. In early 2019, her daughter was in a severe car accident where she was hit head on by an oncoming tractor trailer truck. Because of an accident that wasn’t remotely her fault, she has since been in LTC being treated for injuries that could have ended her life. To make the situation more difficult, she did not have any kind of LTC policy to help with the expenses that came her and her family’s way.
In her circumstance, her injuries are so severe that Medicaid alone would not support her full recovery, which has caused extreme emotional and financial stress for their family. However, in addition to Medicaid eligibility, she is fortunate to have other relatives and friends to help see her through financially, but that isn’t always the case. While it will be a challenging and long recovery period, she is now able to recover slowly over time and has a chance at leading an independent life in the future.
What the consumer wants
Regardless of one’s financial situation, there’s still no total solution for the emotional distress that occurs in almost every circumstance. But for the average consumer, having LTC protection can be the difference between severe or mild emotional distress, or in more difficult situations, between recovering and not.
Yet, despite there being such an evident need for obtaining LTC benefits, consumers of all ages might not get the coverage they need if we don’t make long-term care solutions simple to understand, convenient to obtain and stress-free to enroll. Making access to care protection difficult or cost-prohibitive is a good way to drive away the consumer. In most cases, that’s exactly the experience consumers face when trying to get standalone LTC coverage—it’s not convenient or affordable, and it is extremely difficult to be approved.
Solving the need for care with hybrid products
Many employers may look at offering standalone LTC benefits because that’s all they’ve known to be available to them. In the case of one of my broker friends, one well known company who offers standalone LTC benefits told him if he wanted a product to be fully underwritten, they should expect only 50% of those who apply for coverage to be issued coverage. That’s not the experience a broker wants, and it’s certainly not the experience the consumer wants.It’s tough to get standalone LTC coverage as the consumer, but that’s not the case with a hybrid product. We know one thing for certain; consumers want LTC coverage regardless of the form it’s in. They don’t necessarily care if it’s standalone or hybrid.
Hybrid life insurance with LTC benefits like Trustmark Life + Care® and Trustmark Universal Life with long-term care offer the consumer the best chance at getting the simplicity, convenience, and reduced stress they’re looking for when obtaining benefits. With hybrid options, the consumer chooses the benefit amount that works for their situation (like most life insurance policies), but it comes with the added security of the LTC benefit consumers desperately want. And the best part? Hybrid options are more likely to be approved—A win for brokers, and an ever-bigger win for the consumers searching for solutions.
Brett:
As Kelly described, we know that long-term care benefits are not a one-size-fits-all solution, so it’s important to recognize general consumer trends as well as individual wants and the need for high-quality LTC products—products that offer a sense of financial security and that are actually feasible to obtain. As a service provider, and for producers and brokers, our understanding of the consumer will not only lead to improved outcomes for us, but for the most important stakeholder there is—the consumer.
Next up, we will be discussing voluntary LTC through the eyes of the employer, discussing their perspective on the need to offer solutions, the importance of educating employees, and the benefits that can come from offering LTC voluntary solutions.
To stay up to date on other important LTC legislative updates from Trustmark Voluntary Benefits, be sure to follow us on our LinkedIn and X.
VIEW PREVIOUS INSTALLMENTS: VIEW NEXT INSTALLMENTS:
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