By Harry S. Margolis
Since we first published this post in 2012, our clients have had both good and bad experiences with accessing their long-term care insurance. In general, the more solid the company, the better the experience. Fortunately, many of the less solid companies have left the business, and older policies with such companies are fewer, but some still exist and the companies continue to put up roadblocks to getting coverage, often claiming to have lost paperwork that was sent to them.

We have found that tenacity and keeping good records of every contact with these companies ultimately results in coverage. Sometimes a demand letter from an attorney is also necessary. In fact, in most cases we've been able to convince the companies to reimburse the clients for our fees. Of course, all of this is a terrible burden to place on families already overstretched, doing their best to care for an ailing family member.
Here's the post:
An article on the CBS News website, "Some long-term healthcare policies not paying up," highlights the difficulties many owners of Bankers Life long-term care insurance policies are having trouble collecting. As the article reports, and as some of our clients have experienced, Bankers Life typically gives policyholders a major run around when they make claims, often claiming not to have received documentation that has been sent in.