Strapped for cash in a down economy, many seniors are halting premium payments and abandoning their life insurance policies — right when they’re likely to need them most. But life insurance — including Universal Life — can be converted to cover long-term care expenses or provide other benefits, and producers are obligated — sometimes by law — to let clients know their options.
10,000 Baby Boomers added their names to the Social Security and Medicare rolls on Jan. 1 of this year — and this pace will continue, every day, uninterrupted, for the next 20 years! It will be an almost impossible challenge for the government to cover the costs of Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid for so many people, but this is also an opportunity for the life insurance industry to bring solutions to the equation.

Across the country, lawmakers are recognizing that life insurance policies owned by seniors can help cover the costs of long-term care services. A disproportionately high percentage of Universal Life (UL) policies will be surrendered or allowed to lapse every year. For many seniors faced with tough economic choices and the costs of long-term care, the premium payments requited to keep a UL policy in-force are easy to abandon. The irony in this circumstance is that they have paid premiums for years, and now, when they would get the most benefit from a policy, they instead will get little or no value in return.