[eweissenbach]

I saw this coming 20+ years ago. I was in the insurance industry and watched the LTC issue with great interest. The problem is that the industry started selling LTC widely in the mid to late 80s, with no track record on which to base the premiums. Many companies priced their policies low in order to get business on the books, knowing full well they had provisions in their policies to raise premiums if the reserves were found to be lacking. Well now with many years of tracking experience they are undoubtably finding their original assumptions to be too low, and so are raising premiums. The problem with lowering your COL adjustment is that long term care prices are rising at a greater rate than general inflation, just like all healthcare costs. There should be some protection for long time policy owners, but in most cases there is little recourse - pay the higher premium or lose the coverage you have paid for for many years.