Why, you ask, would a Vermont employer want to offer a long-term care insurance (LTCI) as a group benefit for its employees, even the key employees? First of all, when an employer "sponsors" an LTCI plan, the company is not required to contribute toward the employee's premium, but sponsorship does have its advantages.

It is worth noting some of reasons for sponsoring these worthwhile policies:

• Perhaps an owner or key employee has recently had to assume responsibility for caring for a loved one (parent, spouse, sibling) at home who requires personal and/or nursing care. And what if that person had not purchased a long-term care policy. Accordingly, an employer may not want his/her employees to have endure a similar traumatic and time-consuming experience and expose assets acquired over a lifetime to rapid drawdown.
• Just knowing that an elderly parent in a distant city is covered by a long-term care policy can ease that employee's anxiety and enable him/her to be more focused on work.
• With many LTCI companies the underwriting standards may be relaxed, making it easier for employees to qualify for coverage at reasonable rates.
• Many insurance companies offer LTCI policies to extended family members in addition to the employee and his/her spouse to include:
  
  • parents
  • grandparents
    
  • parents-in-laws
    
  • adult children
    
  • brothers & sisters
    
  • step-parents
• When an employer sponsors an LTCI plan, the premiums of each approved employee (a minimum of usually 3 to five must participate) receives a 5 percent discount on each policy. This is in addition to other premium discounts:
  
  1. spousal discounts of between 25% and 30% for each policy,
  2. multi-family member discount of usually 5% (minimum of 3 in the family)
  
• Some employers want to offer a new executive benefit to reward the loyalty of key staff by subsidizing or even paying the entire annual premium for LTCI.

Benefit Design & Strategies LLC can untangle the complexity of terminology and numerous benefit options offered by policies offered in Vermont to help you identify the best companies both in terms of financial ratings and value. With our broker partnerships we have access to seven of the best Long-Term Care insurance companies in the country.

You may want to refer to our article entitled What to Look for in a Long-Term Care Insurance Policy.