Employer Support For Long Term Care Insurance Grows

Main Category: Health Insurance / Medical Insurance
Article Date: 08 Nov 2007 - 10:00 PDT

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More than 90 percent of employers offering long term care insurance at the workplace are willing to help pay for the benefit, Unum (NYSE: UNM) reveals in its second annual Landscape of Long Term Care. This is a dramatic shift from the 100-percent employee-paid coverage that represented most of the market in earlier years.

"The increasing awareness and need for long term care services is propelling the sales momentum in the workplace," says John Noble, director of long term care products for Unum, the leading provider of this benefit. "Unum's sales premium is up 26 percent in the first half of the year. Even more dramatic is that we saw a 54 percent increase in new enrollees."

Costco, Unum's largest group long term care customer, was a pioneer in recognizing the value of employer-sponsored long term care insurance. Costco added the coverage eight years ago and currently enrolls 23,000 employees in the plan.

"Costco offers benefits to safeguard our employees' health today, as well as help protect their financial security in the future," says Jay Tihinen, assistant vice president of benefits at Costco. "Long term care insurance helps our employees protect the assets that they have worked so hard to achieve. From a business perspective, this offering also gives us a competitive edge in attracting and retaining the best employees in a tight labor market."

Unum enrolls more than 75 percent of workplace participants in these plans, more than 600,000 working Americans. When combined with individual policies, Unum insures nearly 1 million people and provided $80 million in total benefits to claimants in 2006.

Its annual Landscape of Long Term Care analysis of sales trends, the company also notes:

- In 2006, the average age of issue for a group long term care policyholder was 43.5, down from an average age of 47 in 2000. For Unum policies purchased individually through brokers or financial advisers, the average age at time of purchase is 57.

- The top five types of industries purchasing group long term care insurance are law firms, physicians, insurance brokerages, management consulting services and engineering firms.

- The top five states purchasing long term care insurance are California, Texas, Pennsylvania, Florida and Illinois.

- Women outpace men slightly, representing 52 percent of the purchasing population.

- Over the past four years, Unum reports a 5 percent increase in those selecting the $5,000-$6,000 monthly benefit as a result of rising costs of long term care cost.

- Sales of the home health care option have increased to more than 93 percent of policies sold, reflecting a desire among policyholders to remain in their own home even in a time of need.

Unless referenced otherwise, the statistics included in this news release are based on Unum internal data as of 2007.

About Unum

Unum , formerly UnumProvident, is one of the leading providers of employee benefits products and services, and the largest provider of group and individual disability income protection insurance in the United States and the United Kingdom. Through its subsidiaries, Unum provided $6.2 billion in total benefits to customers in 2006.

http://www.unum.com