Did you know that Kansas and Nebraska were once ahead of the curve when it came to long-term care (LTC)?

Back in 2005 and 2006, both states implemented their own Long-Term Care Partnership Programs, giving residents a real incentive to plan ahead: If you purchase a qualifying long-term care (LTC) policy and exhaust the benefits, you could qualify for Medicaid while protecting assets equal to the amount of the policy paid out. Developing these programs wasn’t a small thing. They provided the kind of asset protection most people spend their whole lives chasing. 

What many people don’t realize is that these programs still exist today, despite stand-alone LTC carriers exiting the market. What's disappeared is the conversation around them. 

It raises a question worth sitting with: have your clients stopped caring about LTC, or did they just stop hearing about it? Because a shrinking shelf of carriers isn't the same thing as a shrinking need.  

Why This Mattered in the First Place 

Traditional LTC insurance took off in the Midwest for three straightforward reasons.  

• People didn't want a nursing home bill to wipe out a lifetime of savings.  
• They didn't want to become a burden on their kids.
• They wanted some say in where and how they'd be cared for if the time came.  

For most buyers, LTC was never really about insurance in some generic sense. It was about protecting your estate and keeping your options open. 

Then, as we all know, the math caught up with the industry. Premium increases became routine, carriers exited, and rate stability became a punchline instead of a promise. Ultimately, everyone in the industry got understandably gun-shy, and standalone LTC became a thing of the past. 

But here’s the number that should anchor every conversation you have on this topic going forward: LTC costs in the U.S. are projected to roughly double to $5.6 trillion by 2047, with average lifetime costs per person already sitting around $172,000.¹ That's not a future problem. That's a today problem wearing a future-dated label. 

The Next Generation of LTC: Hybrid Life With Long-Term Care 

Despite the exit of stand-alone LTC carriers in the market, LTC was the fastest growing benefit from 2020-2024.² That’s because of growing popularity of hybrid life with LTC benefit, products that can offer you real ground to stand on with your clients who got burned (or scared off) by the old LTC model. Specifically, this new generation of LTC benefits solve the objection that killed a thousand stand-alone LTC sales: "What if I never need care?" 

Employers should know that hybrid product premiums are typically guaranteed, meaning no future rate hikes to be afraid of. If LTC is never needed, their employees’ beneficiaries will still get a death benefit. If it IS needed, the policy can help offset the cost. Either way they look at it, your clients never walk away feeling like they paid for nothing. Some of these policies can even build cash value that your client can access while they're still living. That's a meaningfully different pitch than "pay premiums and hope you never need to use them." 

Hybrid life with LTC can also be offered as an employer-funded benefit, which can help your clients solve two very different problems at once. For lower-income employees, an employer-paid option may be the only realistic path to meaningful LTC protection. These are people who would likely never buy a standalone policy on their own, but who benefit enormously when their employer foots some or all of the bill.  

At the other end of the org chart, employers can also use these same hybrid products to build a richer benefits package for the executives and key employees they're trying to retain. The same product category that gets coverage in front of an entry-level employee can also become a high-value perk for the executive an employer doesn't want to lose. That dual utility is exactly why this is a conversation worth having with every client. 

Evaluating the New Versus the Old Model 

As the market has shifted, it hasn't been all upside from a consumer perspective, and your clients deserve to hear that part too. Dollar for dollar, traditional LTC insurance still buys a bigger pool of care benefits. Most hybrid products today pay LTC benefits by accelerating the death benefit, which can mean less left for beneficiaries later if there isn't a restoration rider built in. Premiums also tend to run higher for hybrid products because of the life insurance component. So, if your client's only goal is maximizing pure LTC coverage, a standalone policy might still get them further. 

That being said, it's also worth being upfront with clients about why that tradeoff exists. The low premiums that made standalone LTC so attractive in the first place are the same low premiums that eventually broke the market. Carriers underpriced the risk, and rate hikes (and exits) followed. Yes, building LTC into a life insurance product makes accessing care benefits cost more for consumers, but it also guarantees the benefit gets used in some form, whether through care or a death benefit. For consumers focused on long-term financial security across both their living and non-living years, that guarantee is worth the higher premium. 

… 

Kansas and Nebraska figured out the importance of LTC planning two decades ago, and the need has only continued to increase in importance for Midwesterners. While stand-alone options may not be available for your clients anymore, hybrid options can still serve your clients and continue solving the need for care benefits. If your clients haven't heard this version of the story yet, let's change that. 

Sources: 
_{1 Are You Prepared for Medical Expenses in Retirement? Dorsey Wealth Management. 2025.
2 Transforming voluntary benefits: A comprehensive look at emerging trends and future direction. BenefitsPRO. 2024.}