Can mom's long-term care insurance cancel her?
Older policies often had provisions for reinstating long-term care insurance. Many would allow for re-instatement up to 6 months after the policy had lapsed if the reason was due to a cognitive OR a physical impairment. (Most newer policies only allow for re-instatement in the event of a cognitive impairment.) You should review the re-instatement provision in the policy and see if it includes lapses caused by a physical impairment.
Secondly, the best group/person to call would be the Missouri Department of Insurance. You can file a complaint with the Department and they may be able to pressure the insurer into re-instating the policy. Here is a link where you can get more information about this: http://insurance.mo.gov/consumer/complaints/index.htm
Your situation illustrates why I often make the following recommendations to my clients:
1) Pay long-term care insurance premiums via an automatic, electronic funds transfer every month.
2) Take advantage of the "third party notification" feature in most LTCi policies. This can help prevent a policy from lapsing because up to 3 people can be notified if your LTCi premium is late.
BOO to your moms insurance its all about $ not TAKING care of our loved ones!!!
I know that it's pretty easy and convenient to blame insurance companies for situations that don't work out as well as we would like. And there are occasions when the insurance company is clearly not seeing things correctly.
But I just want to remind everyone following this thread that by and large long-term care insurance carriers are doing a fine job overall in paying claims as needed.
The nation’s 10 leading long-term care insurance companies paid over $10.8 million in daily claim benefits in 2010 according to a new study conducted by the American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance.
This represents a 53 percent increase over the daily value of claims paid by the same entities in 2007 according to study findings.
