Rumors that John Hancock will be increasing rates on existing policyholders of its Long-Term Care Insurance products are true, according to Kiplinger.com.  The proposed rate increase must be approved by each state insurance commission, so it will be some time before it rolls out to the consumers, who will receive a 60-day notice of the increase.

How The John Hancock Rate Increase Affects You

If you are just starting to look into long-term care insurance, you have several options available.  As brokers, we are happy to provide you a side-by-side comparison of several carriers.  As of the writing of this article, several of our top carriers have not raised rates on policyholders:

• MetLife
• Prudential
• Allianz

Of these carriers, Allianz actually provides a five-year rate increase guarantee to you with its Generation Protector II policy.  You can request the side-by-side comparison for yourself below this article here on our Long-Term Care Insurance website. 

Recent Rules Benefit New Policyholders

Another aspect to note while researching the John Hancock Long-Term Care Insurance rate increase proposal is that in recent years, carriers have raised prices for new policyholders.  This may actaully benefit you if you are a new policyholder, as this was done in anticipation that future rate increases on existing policyholders will be more difficult.

What Existing Policyholders Should Do

Depending on your health status, there's very little chance that a current policy will compete whatsoever with your 10-year-old long-term care insurance policy from John Hancock.  For one thing, you are now ten years older than you were, plus your health status could have declined.  The Kiplinger article points out that you may be able to scale back benefits, depending on how your policy was written.