Description: Family caregivers are a critical link in providing long-term services and supports (LTSS), but they have significant unmet needs. To better support family caregivers, Congress authorized the Recognize, Assist, Include, Support, & Engage (RAISE) Family Caregivers Act in 2018 and created the RAISE Family Caregiving Advisory Council. The Council identified recommendations to serve as the backbone of a national strategy to improve the physical, emotional and financial well-being of family caregivers. A new report, "Asking Directions: Mapping a Course to Support Family Caregivers," identifies specific actions across a variety of players for meeting the Council’s recommendations. It summarizes insights from a year’s worth of strategy sessions and interviews with representatives of over 100 organizations. The report brings together thoughts on best practices and the most critical action steps from national and state organizations, county health providers, the direct care workforce, large and small employers, aging and disability organizations, faith-based groups, respite care providers and more. This article summarizes the research methods and key findings of the report and the work conducted by the Leading Age LTSS Center @UMass Boston and Community Catalyst’s Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation.

Description: Description * Coinsurance has not been widely offered as a benefit reduction option to offset long-term care premium rate increases. This article uses an illustrative example to evaluate the potential impact coinsurance could have on an insurance carrier's future claim liabilities and a policyholder's premium rates. It also explores various considerations insurance carriers, regulators, and policyholders should think about when evaluating whether coinsurance is the right option.

Description: Panelists discuss the role of the valuation actuary in health insurance. From the Record of the Society of Actuaries, Vol. 24, No. 2.

Description: Recently completed experience and research studies from the SOA.

Description: Long-Term Care Insurance Coverage: Educating Clients and Evaluating Its Merits as an Investment An Actuary’s Solution to the Consumer’s Dilemma by William A. Dreher from Long-Term Care Newsletter, December 2004, Issue No. 13.

Description: This is a letter to Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services [HHS] from the SOA and AAA. The letter asks that the law prohibiting use of genetic information in underwriting not be extended to Long-Term Care Insurance as has been proposed by HHS.

Description: Long-term-care LTC insurance presents a huge opportunity for insurers. If fully exploited, the field lends itself to policies with relatively large premiums that need to be accumulated over a lifetime in statutory reserves, requiring fiduciary investment management as well as insurance services. The need to accumulate large reserves to prefund a risk largely concentrated at the end of the life span gives this product most of the desirable characteristics of the level premium life insurance policies that were the staple of the insurance business for many decades.

Description: Read the December 2018 issue of Long-Term Care News published by the Long Term Care Section. Newsletters provide practical information for the working actuary, articles on trends that impact sections and news about section activities.

Description: Highlights from recent research reports focusing on retirement concerns.

Description: Discussion of the movement toward principle-based reserves for LTC insurance.