Mutual of Omaha traditional long-term care: let's talk about the rate increase letter.

Unmatched leverage on your premium dollar

A couple in their mid-fifties can often build a six-figure pool of care benefits for a few thousand dollars a year. To get the same monthly benefit from a hybrid policy you'd typically move a large lump sum. If cash flow is what you have, this is the efficient answer.

Real inflation protection you can actually afford

3% or 5% compound growth on the benefit pool. Because the base premium is so much lower, buying serious inflation protection is realistic here in a way it often isn't elsewhere. Buy it young and the benefit at 85 dwarfs what you started with.

Generous couples and partner discounts

Discounts apply for married couples and domestic partners, and in many cases still apply even if only one applicant is approved. Two policies almost always cost less per person than one.

Cash benefit option available

Mutual of Omaha offers a cash benefit feature that pays a percentage of your monthly benefit with no receipts — useful for paying a family caregiver, home modifications, or informal help that a strict reimbursement policy won't cover.

Shared care for couples

An optional rider lets one spouse tap the other's unused benefits. If she needs six years and he never files a claim, that pool isn't wasted.

Tax advantages most people miss

These are tax-qualified policies. Premiums can be deductible as a medical expense within age-based IRS limits, and self-employed people and business owners often deduct substantially more. Benefits paid are generally income-tax-free.

Still actively sold — and repriced honestly

The 2020 rate refresh means today's premium reflects modern data rather than 1990s optimism. That's precisely why the current block hasn't needed an increase.

A carrier that stayed

Mutual of Omaha has been in business since 1909, is policyholder-owned rather than shareholder-driven, and is one of the last major names still writing new traditional coverage. Staying in a hard market says something.

The premium is not guaranteed. Full stop.

This is the honest headline. Traditional LTC is guaranteed renewable, not guaranteed premium. The carrier cannot single you out — but it can raise rates on an entire class of policyholders with state approval. Anyone who tells you otherwise is lying to you.

Use it or lose it

If you pay for thirty years and die in your sleep at 88 having never needed care, the premiums are gone. No death benefit, no refund. Hybrid policies solve exactly this — at a much higher price.

Underwriting is genuinely strict

Cognitive testing, medical records, prescription history, and often a face-to-face or phone interview. Declines are common after about age 70 or with diabetes, mobility issues, or memory concerns. Apply earlier than feels necessary.

It's reimbursement, mostly

Aside from the optional cash benefit, you submit bills for qualified care from licensed providers and get reimbursed up to your daily or monthly maximum. That's paperwork during the hardest stretch of your life.

Payments continue for life

Unlike a single-premium hybrid, you're writing this check into your eighties and nineties — on a fixed income, at exactly the age when a rate increase would hurt most.

A rate increase forces a hard choice

If one arrives, you can pay it, reduce your benefit period, cut your inflation rider, or take a paid-up nonforfeiture benefit. None of those are fun. Everyone buying traditional coverage should decide in advance which lever they'd pull.