If I Don't Use Long Term Care Benefit Do I Get Money Back

Transamerica Long-Term Care Insurance Review

Transamerica opened in 1904 as a small bank, then grew to make financial services available to anyone as the Bank of America. A little over two decades later, the company ventured into the insurance industry so customers could handle their banking and insurance conveniently in one place. The Bank Holding Company Act of 1956 required Transamerica to choose to offer banking or insurance services, and the company opted to remain in the insurance field with long-term care insurance as one of many financial protection products.

Today, Transamerica is a leader in the insurance industry and ranks among the top 10 long-term care insurance companies with nearly 300,000 policies in force. Transamerica's TransCare III Long-Term Care insurance offers many benefits and rider options, explained below. The company also sells life insurance, mutual funds, annuities and other retirement savings solutions.

Transamerica Life Insurance Company earned impressive marks for long-term financial stability from AM Best, Fitch, Moody's and S&P Global. Transamerica's parent company, Aegon, is also highly rated for financial stability.

Transamerica offers coverage regardless of age. TransCare III Long-term Care insurance helps to protect your finances from life's unexpected circumstances and the high costs of long-term care services.

Pros

• Wide selection of riders to customize your long-term care policy
• Sign up for coverage as early as age 18 or as late as age 79
• Plans don't lapse due to age or health changes
• 3-year automatic rate guarantee

Cons

• No online quotes on website

Transamerica TransCare III Long-term Care Standard Benefits

Long-term care insurance plans typically have maximum daily benefits (MDB), elimination periods (EP) and policy maximums. The MDB caps the amount paid out each day, and the EP is a waiting period between when you become ill or injured and when the insurance starts paying benefits. Policy maximums define the amount of time over which benefits are paid or limit the total dollar amount in benefits over the life of the policy. MDB, EP and policy maximums vary depending on the coverage you decide to buy. Some of the benefits with all TransCare III Long-Term Care insurance policies are subject to these limitations, which is standard practice.

TransCare III Long-Term Care policies include these basic care benefits:

• Long-Term Care Facility: pays for each day of nursing home care or another qualifying facility.

• LTC Facility Bed Reservation: pays when the insured is absent for any reason except discharge from a long-term care facility. Reserves a room up to 60 days per year.

• Home Care/Adult Day Care (HC/ADC): pays for care in the insured's home or at an adult day care.

Some TransCare III Long-Term Care standard benefits protect you from premium costs, like the ability to reduce benefits or the benefit period if premiums rise substantially. Another notable feature is should you die before turning 67 years old, your beneficiary receives a payment in the amount of all premiums paid minus the value of claims paid out.

Building a Transamerica TransCare III Long-term Care Policy

A snapshot of Transamerica's TransCare III policy features include:

• Issue Ages: 19-79
• MDB: $50-$500 except for Vermont ($75-$500), Wisconsin ($60-$500) and Massachusetts ($50-$500 unless you're a Mass Health participant, in which case it is $125-$500).
• Maximum Amount (Pool of Money): $18,250-$1,095,000 for all states except the Pool of Money in Maryland, Massachusetts, and Oregon is between $36,500 and $1,095,000; in Vermont $27,375 and $1,095,000; and in Wisconsin $21,900 and $1,095,000.
• Payment Method: Lifetime

Transamerica TransCare III Standard Benefits Out-of-Pocket expenses paid unless otherwise noted
Benefit	Description
Cash Benefit	Pays cash each month equal to 10 times the MDB in place of all other benefits, except Optional Care Coordination
Accident Benefit	Pays up two times the MDB for qualified long-term care services if you are injured before your sixty-seventh birthday. No combining with some other benefits
Respite Care Benefit	Pays for temporary stays in a long-term care facility, community-based program like adult day care, or in-home care, up to 30 days per year
Remain at Home Benefit	Reimburses costs for home modifications, volunteer caregiver training, therapeutic devices or technology, or a medical alert system. Lifetime maximum equal to 60 times the MDB
Alternate Plan of Care Benefit	Gives Transamerica the discretion to consider new, alternative long-term care services not covered when policy is issued
Waiver of Premium Benefit	Monthly premiums waived once LTC facility, Accident Benefit, HC & ADC, Cash Benefit or Hospice Care benefits begin
Hospice Care Benefit	Pays out of pocket expenses for each day of care from a hospice care provider, up to 180 days

Transamerica Long-term Care Insurance Optional Riders

TransCare III Long-Term Care offers several benefit riders you can add to your policy to receive a customized long-term care insurance plan.

• Nonforfeiture Benefit: Allows the insurance plan to continue on a limited basis if you stop paying premiums. The policy must be in effect for a minimum of three years to use the Nonforfeiture Benefit Rider.

• Return of Premium Upon Death: This rider must be continuously in force from its effective date. The policy beneficiary receives a payment when you die amounting to the sum of all premiums paid minus payments you waived and benefits paid out.

• Monthly Benefit: This rider pays monthly instead of daily benefits.

• Shared Care: Couples with identical Transamerica long-term care insurance policies can share benefits if one exhausts their benefits.

• Full Restoration of Benefits: This one-use rider restores benefits when claims are paid in full unless the insured is chronically ill and hasn't received qualified long-term care services for 180 consecutive days.

• Joint Waiver of Premium: Couples who hold identical long-term care policies with Transamerica can waive premiums during the same months.

• Elimination Period Credit: This rider can lessen or satisfy your elimination period with credit for days you received the HC or ADC Benefit.

Transamerica Long-term Care Payment Options

Transamerica offers several payment options on TransCare III Long-Term Care plans. You can opt to pay annually, twice yearly, quarterly or each month. Your premium payment method must be approved during the underwriting process before your application gets approved.

Source: Transamerica

Transamerica Complaints

The Better Business Bureau gives Transamerica a "B". Many reviews sites rate Transamerica long-term care insurance well. We saw ratings of 9 out of 10 stars with one site rating Transamerica the "Best for Affordable Policies." The company has a 1.6 out of 5 stars on ConsumerAffairs.com based on 64 reviews. The majority of the complaints seem to revolve around being denied coverage and policyholders who felt it took too long for the insurance to pay out. TheBalance lists Transamerica among the top four long-term care insurance companies, citing affordable benefits starting as low as $18,000 and no waiting period for home health benefits when provided by an approved agency.

Transamerica Q&A

• How do I purchase long-term care insurance from Transamerica?
  You can talk to an independent insurance agent about a TransCare III Long-Term Care policy or call Transamerica at the number on the website to ask questions and apply.

• Does Transamerica offer any discounts on long-term care insurance?
  The discounts Transamerica offers can lower your long-term care insurance premiums substantially. Transamerica offers a couples discount of up to 30 percent if spouses or partners apply together and are both approved for TransCare III Long-Term Care. You may qualify for a 15 percent discount if you are part of a couple and only you apply for a policy. If you're in good health and satisfy specific health-related underwriting criteria, you may be eligible for up to a 10 percent discount.

• Why should I consider TransCare III Long-Term Care insurance when I have Medicare?
  Transamerica long-term care insurance is designed specifically to protect you financially from the costs Medicare doesn't pay for when it comes to long-term care. Even Medicare Supplement insurance does not cover many long-term care expenses.

• If my spouse and I get the shared care rider on a Transamerica long-term care policy, what happens to the benefits when one of us dies?
  If one TransCare III Long-Term Care policyholder with the shared care rider dies, the remaining pool of money transfers to the survivor with no further premium payments on the rider.

• When would I receive benefits from Transamerica long-term care insurance?
  There are two ways policyholders qualify for TransCare III Long-Term Care benefits:

  1. You need considerable supervision to protect you from threats to your health and safety due to a severe cognitive impairment.

  2. You need substantial assistance performing at least two of the six Activities of Daily Living (bathing, continence, dressing, eating, toileting, and transferring to and from the bed) for at least 90 days due to a loss of functional capacity.

Conclusion

According to the Administration on Aging, 69 percent of all seniors will need on average three years of long-term care at some point in their life. With long-term care costs currently ranging from $20 an hour for homemaker services to $7,698 per month for a private room in a nursing home, the expenses add up quickly and could wipe out retirement savings altogether. TransCare III Long-Term Care insurance from Transamerica can help you plan for retirement years with confidence while removing financial stress from your loved ones.

Recent Reviews

Featured Review

Getting the claim process took some time/effort but customer service reps during the process and post process have been excellent. After 20 years paying premiums we thought Mom would never receive benefits and as crazy as it sounds, at one time recently we considered cancelling the policy with the last price increase, we are SO thankful we didn't. Robert

Robert W.

Swansea, IL

Terrible Experience! Applied for LTC Policy back in June and received an approval confirmation at the end of September. Am still waiting to receive my Policy despite being pre-charged for it in October and am quickly approaching the Washington State deadline to apply for an exemption.

I tried connecting through their Service Department but they are useless and basically told me I can cancel if I want as they can't rush.

C B.

Bellevue, WA

This company is horrible. Run away and never use them. In addition to the horrible application process that took nearly nine months with poor/confusing infrequent status updates. When I finally got coverage they screwed up the data entry on my bank routing number.

I received multiple USPS mailed notifications about this. I could never get through on their support phone line. After replaying via USPS mail including a voided check I still got another notification. Given there was no web presence to check on this, I had to go through their phone support.

Don't believe their 4-5min wait estimate. It was consistently more than 25minutes. In this go around it took 9 calls to finally get through.

The first 8 after around 20-30 minute waits resulted in their agent actively picking up the phone to immediately hang it up (I could hear them doing this)...presumably to fake their call metrics.

When I finally got through the agent was useless. She could tell me that they received my account information, but not confirm if the actual account numbers were correct, not why it hadn't processed a payment(over 30 days since receipt), not when it would process a payment, or help try to process the payment with me on the phone...just hope that some day it may go through.

Zach J.

Lynnwood, WA

I began a claim process for my father at the end of August 2021. He could no longer transfer himself and had to have 24/7 care. He's in a wonderful facility that gives him that 24/7 care but it's not on TransAmerica's approved list.

Although we could have been told that at the initiation of our claim they waited until my father was in the facility for almost 3 months before they let us know that the facility would not be approved.

Only then did they "kindly" inform us that they could send us a list of approved facilities so that we could move him and restart the claim process. I see it as a Machiavellian delay tactic. I would never personally buy a product from this company.

Frank A.

Fort Worth, TX

Really bad experience. Applied in May 2021, it is October now and I haven't heard back. The deadline for having a policy in WA state is Nov 1st, and still they don't send any update.

Their customer support is terrible - they just tell you to send them an email (which I did and never heard back). I would definitely go for a different insurance.

Andreea S.

Kirkland, WA

I put an application in Feb. of 2021. They had me fill out questionnaires and take some tests. I have not heard back from them since. It is now Oct. 2021. I feel I have a right to know whether or not they are going to give me coverage. Their customer service is very poor.

Ted K.

New Albany, IN

My Mom and Dad had Transamerica long term care insurance, which they paid on for many years. My Dad passed away in 2000 and my Mom is now 94 years old.

My Mom had a stroke in January of this year (2021) and by April we decided that she needed more care than we could give her at home. So in April we put her in a Nursing Home and filed a claim with Transamerica.

It is now September and haven't received a dime on her claim. Hope springs eternal, so we will see what happens ??

DAVID L.

FREDERICK, CO

I'm POA of my mom's estate and I called TA to talk about setting up care for my mom who has dementia. We had to move her out of her home and she no longer can drive. I've been taking care of her but called to see about getting help a couple days a week!

I got so many different answers from several people that I said screw it! I have been doing research on TA and there have been several class action lawsuits against them as recent as this year!

I'm going to try again with them and if they give me the runaround, I will file a complaint with the Consumer Protection Division with the Attorney Generals office in Washington State! I don't put up with crap like this! Especially since she's been paying for over 30 years!

Tammy T.

Gig Harbor, WA

My husband paid to that insurance for 20 years. Now he has severe dementia but we cannot make this insurance to pay back even one penny. First, it is very difficult now to get in touch with them. Very long wait on a phone.

Now they work from home, and nobody is able to answer, I guess everybody is very busy with their own house work.

If you agree that they will call you when it is your turn, they will connect you not to a live person but to answering machine, so better stay on a phone even if it takes several attempts and more than an hour.

Second, every time you call they tell that they are still "reviewing". Nothing ever is ready to process the claim. They say that RN will call in 3 business days to make evaluation, but she will never call.

If you call again, they again will invent something, like they should submit now request for that and it will be reviewed now in 5 business days.

Not the nurse visit, but just reviewing request for 5 business days, even if it was promised before that she would make a call. If they said earlier that they will send a paperwork, it's a lie. You will not get anything.

You have to call again only to hear that there is no record of that promise. They will say again that they will send paperwork, but it would be with the same result - nothing.

They are "reviewing" our case from March, and now is the end of August, still absolutely nothing is done.

They are still obtaining documents from home care agency, regardless of the fact that they received invoices from them since March, which they are still reviewing. And so on, and so on.

They just want to drag the time as much as possible, hoping that the later they will start a claim, then the sooner after that their client may die and they will keep his/her money.

It's a shame! As somebody mentioned here, people should start some class action lawsuit against them.

Nadia C.

New Hope, MN

First, let me say the customer service people are nice. Not helpful but nice. Getting the benefits took awhile. She is currently in a facility. Keeping benefits is ridiculous. They harass my mom and me every 3 months with a "reevaluation".

Just recently was told she no longer is eligible for benefits like dementia gets better (eyeroll). This is so hard when you are trying to keep your head above water with this disease and have to be harassed constantly. Not knowing when they will yank the rug out from under you.

I have been threatened 3 times. They will tell me the facility didn't give them the paperwork. They only do mail and fax no email. Even when you have proof of fax they deny. Put you on hold. Give you the runaround.

So ridiculous the lengths they go to to keep from paying. I do not know why there is not a class-action lawsuit against them.

Nancy S.

Freeport, FL

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If I Don't Use Long Term Care Benefit Do I Get Money Back

Source: https://www.retirementliving.com/reviews/transamerica-longterm-care-insurance

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