Securian’s new Long-Term Care Agreement (LTCA) is now available on individual universal life policies in all states except California, Montana, New York, and Oregon. It provides a flexible mix of death benefit and LTC protection, allowing clients to leverage their life insurance policy to receive the benefits they need.

Mutual of Omaha has announced in-force rate adjustments for certain LTCI policies in Alaska, Nebraska, and New York. The changes will go into effect on Sept. 1, 2025, for Alaska and Nebraska, and on Oct. 1, 2025, for New York.

Thrivent uses iPipeline to provide access to its eApp, illustrations, and printable applications. Beginning June 20, 2025, iPipeline will require multi-factor authentication, and shared accounts will not be allowed. In preparation, please update your account with an accurate email address and mobile number to ensure you can log in after the deadline.

NGL’s medical records vendor, eNoah, is implementing a process for obtaining special authorizations electronically, saving time and effort. This change will go into effect on June 23, 2025. Be on the lookout for live demos of the new process later this month.

In 2021, Thrivent launched a linked-benefit long-term care insurance (LTCI) solution to complement its traditional LTCI product offering. Although the traditional solution remains competitive, the linked-benefit product (CareForward) has become a less attractive offering. Given this, Thrivent is suspending the sale of CareForward effective June 27, 2025. Pending business will continue to be underwritten and placed until Sept. 9, 2025.

NGL has updated its Underwriting Guides with new information around aortic dilation (p. 11, CA p. 9), weight loss (p. 38, CA p. 32), joint replacement (p. 25, CA p. 21), lymphoma (p. 27, CA p. 23) and cancer (p. 14, CA p. 12). The California version of the guide received further updates to the atrial fibrillation (CA p. 10) and physical therapy entries (CA p. 26). Download the guides: Premier Underwriting Guide | California Underwriting Guide

Mutual of Omaha has announced in-force rate adjustments for certain LTCI policies in Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nebraska, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, Virginia, and Wyoming. The changes will go into effect on Aug. 1, 2025.

As of May 1, the Authorization to Release Underwriting Information to Insurance Agent/Agency form (31368) is available for standalone long-term care applications administered by Illumifin. Now, if a traditional standalone LTC application is declined or rated and the client has signed the form 31368, the underwriter can provide you with additional details about the reason for that decision.

A Massachusetts Medicare document that must be left with applicants prior to completing the application has been revised. The “2025 Massachusetts Consumer Guide to Medicare” replaces the document “A Massachusetts Consumer Guide to Medicare (11/23).” The updated document will be available on both ClientConnect and the Agent Resource Center under the Massachusetts application documents on May 9.

Every year, Mutual of Omaha conducts a cost-of-care study in all 50 states, and the results are in. The cost of services continues to rise, and the updated figures show the average cost for a home health aide is close to $75,000 per year.