Life Care Funding is proud that states across the country are endorsing our Long Term Care Benefit Plan to help families pay for Senior Care.  Twelve states have introduced policy conversion consumer disclosure legislation to educate policy owners about the option to sell a life insurance policy to fund a Long Term Care Benefit Plan and remain private pay. It also codifies the Long Term Care Benefit Plan structure that protects the funds and ensures they will only be used to pay for long term care services in: California, Florida, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Washington. Texas was the first to enact this consumer protection legislation into law in June, 2013 and Kentucky enacted the measure in March, 2014.

The owner of a life insurance policy can do this in every state. The point of the new law is to make sure people are being notified that they have this right to use their life insurance to pay for long term care.  The bill ensures that policy owners will be informed of this private pay option by the state government, and that they specifically use a Long Term Care Benefit Plan to protect the funds and make sure that they are only used to pay for the long term care services of their choice.

Life Care Funding has worked with the National Conference of Insurance Legislators (NCOIL), the Florida Medicaid Department, the Florida and Texas Health Care Associations, AARP, the insurance industry, and the life settlement industry led by Coventry First and LISA to develop this private pay funding option to provide important consumer protections and ensure that it is recognized as a Medicaid Qualified spend-down.  Life Care Funding has testified before NCOIL, the state legislatures of Florida, Texas, Maine, a special joint meeting of the New Jersey Medicaid and Insurance Departments, and provided expert testimony before legislative workgroups in Florida and Louisiana and contributed to the final report of the Congressional Commission on Long Term Care.  Life Care Funding has been covered in the New York Times and Wall Street Journal, published numerous studies, and we have spoken across the country about the importance of making sure the owner of a life insurance policy understand that they are better off converting it into a Long Term Care Benefit Plan instead of lapsing or surrendering their policy.

According to the Florida Health Care Association: Due to the Medicaid spend-down path, seniors currently in need of Medicaid long term care services must either cash surrender or outright abandon their policies. By allowing seniors to use the value of their life insurance policies to pay for much needed long term care services, this will give seniors more choice, including whether to receive care at home for a longer period of time or cover their nursing facility care costs if that type of medical care is more appropriate.