The Lincoln long-term care insurance product is called Lincoln MoneyGuard III. It is a hybrid long-term care insurance policy, one that combines permanent life insurance with long-term care insurance. These are sometimes called linked policies. The beauty of these policies is that if you require long-term care the money is there for that, but if you don’t, your heirs get a nice tax-free lump sum death benefits when you pass away. This is different than the traditional long-term care insurance, because if it turns out you don’t need long-term care, all the money you spent on premiums goes to the insurance company and you get nothing.
MoneyGuard III is a flexible hybrid long-term care insurance policy. Its unique feature is zero elimination period which is very rare in the hybrid long-term care insurance market. Overall, it is a very solid policy, definitely worth your consideration.
- Features of Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance Policy
- How Much does Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance Cost?
- Customer Satisfaction Rating of Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance
- Financial Strength Rating of Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance
Features of Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance Policy
This plan has some nice features, including:
- Choose how long you pay premiums (one time, monthly, quarterly, semi-annually or annually)
- Inflation protection is optional (3% or 5%)
- No elimination period
- Couples discount
- Benefits travel with you if you move abroad
- No medical exams are needed to qualify
Basically, this is a universal life insurance policy with a long-term care benefits rider attached.
There’s also two return of premium options:
- Basic: You’ll get back 70% of premiums paid
- Vested: You’ll get 100% back after year ten (this requires a 20% price increase for the same LTC benefits)
One thing that’s important to note is that this is a reimbursement policy. You will pay for care out-of-pocket and Lincoln will reimburse you for those expenses. A major drawback with this plan is that not everyone has that money available to pay for care before they get reimbursed. If that’s your situation, you should look around for a cash indemnity policy, which gives you cash you can spend it as you see fit. Both Securian and Nationwide offer such policies. Another drawback of reimbursement policies is that you’ll have to submit receipts every month, even if you haven’t moved and your expenses are exactly the same as they were last month.
There is a brief cash option with this plan—it allows for $100 a day to cover the transition from informal to formal care, for up to 180 days. You don’t need to submit receipts.
MoneyGuard III Long-Term care insurance policy from Lincoln Financial also offers residual death benefit of 5% of base face amount, up to $5,000. This means that even after using up all long term care benefit, when the insured passes away, his/her beneficiary still receives up to $5,000 death benefit. This should be good for final expenses, avoiding the need to have another final expense policy.
>>MORE: The Best Hybrid Long-Term Care Insurance Companies
How Much does Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance Cost?
We got a quote for a healthy 50-year-old woman living in Florida. Below are the policy’s benefits:
- $6,000 monthly benefit limit
- $72,000 annual long-term care benefit
- $288,000 total LTC benefits
- $156,000 death benefit
- Four years of benefits. The quote we obtained is for a 4-year benefit policy. MoneyGuard III offers options from 2 to 7 years.
- And the annual premiums are $11,623 and pay for 10 years. So, the total premiums would be $116,230.
To be clear, if you don’t use the long-term care benefits, your heirs get at least a $156,000 death benefit.
Customer Satisfaction Rating of Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance
Lincoln Financial gets an overall score of 750 out of 1,000 points on J.D. Power’s life insurance study. This puts them solidly in the average range, with three stars.
The BBB gives Lincoln Financial an A-, although they’re not accredited. There are 67 complaints on the website in the last three years, 23 in the last 12 months. Some complaints are unavailable, and most of the rest concern being denied benefits for some reason.
The NAIC gives Lincoln Financial a .09 score, with the median average being 1.0. This means Lincoln Financial has fewer complaints than expected.
>>MORE: The 5 Best Traditional Long-Term Care Insurance Companies
Financial Strength Rating of Lincoln Long-Term Care Insurance
Lincoln Financial earns an A+ rating (superior) from A.M. Best, with a stable outlook. Lincoln Financial definitely has the resources it needs to pay claims.
Last Thoughts
If you need a hybrid long-term care/permanent life insurance policy, Lincoln Financials’ MoneyGuard III is a solid option. One great feature is that the elimination period is zero, so benefits start right away. The fact that you have to submit receipts and get reimbursed for costs is a drawback, but if you don’t mind that, Lincoln Financial may work for you.