Read Carefully What Insurer Writes To You

Buying long-term care insurance isn’t an easy decision. It’s an increasingly pricey product that requires you to look way down the road, to the possibility of shelling out big bucks for a nursing home or some other form of assisted living.

The last thing you want to worry about is having your insurer pull a fast one on you after you sign up for coverage. But that’s what Prudential has done, making a sneaky change to policyholders’ long-term care coverage.

At issue is what’s known as an “inflation protector,” which allows policyholders to boost the amount they’ll be able to pay for future nursing home care in light of rising costs.

This can be an important consideration but will also increase quarterly premiums. In the past, long-term care policyholders would be asked by Prudential from time to time if they wanted to up their insurance ante. If not, they wouldn’t have to do a thing and their coverage would continue as always.

Now, however, Prudential is informing customers that the system has changed. Instead of being asked if they want to increase coverage, the insurer will assume that they do and raise rates automatically.

To avoid a rate increase, policyholders will have to notify Prudential in writing that they don’t want their coverage to change.

“This seems really over the top,” said Steven Friscia, who has had Prudential long-term care coverage for the last 25 years, ever since his father’s diagnosis of Alzheimer’s disease nearly bankrupted his family.

“I wonder how many other people got the letter from Prudential and didn’t read it or just threw it away, and now their premium is going to go way up,” he said. “At least before, your rate would stay unchanged if you didn’t do anything.”

"I don’t want it and wouldn’t have had to worry about it under the old system. Now I had to mail them a letter saying I don’t want it. You can’t call or email.”

I can’t say this often enough: Read what companies send you. It’s usually just marketing stuff. But every so often, they’re going to try to slip something important past you.

And they’re hoping you won’t make a conscious decision to protect yourself.