Genworth Long-Term Care Insurance: What Policyholders Need to Know in 2026

Millions of Americans hold Genworth LTC insurance policies purchased in the 1990s and 2000s — many of which have absorbed cumulative premium increases of 100% or more. If you're a Genworth policyholder weighing your next rate hike notice, or someone researching whether to buy a new policy, here's what the company's situation actually means for your planning.

Who holds Genworth LTC insurance — and why they're in this situation

At its peak in the early 2000s, Genworth Financial was the largest long-term care insurer in the United States. The company sold hundreds of thousands of policies during the LTC insurance boom of the 1990s and early 2000s, when carriers — including Genworth — priced policies based on actuarial assumptions that turned out to be wrong in three critical ways:

1. People lived longer than projected. Actuarial tables from that era underestimated longevity. More policyholders lived to claim age — and claimed for longer — than the original pricing models anticipated.
2. Care costs grew faster than expected. Nursing home and assisted living inflation outpaced general CPI, and average claim durations exceeded models.
3. Lapse rates were wrong. The pricing assumed a certain percentage of healthy policyholders would cancel their policies. They didn't. People who kept their policies were disproportionately sick or near claim age — a phenomenon called "adverse lapse selection." The business model depended on healthy people canceling. They didn't.

The result: by the 2010s, Genworth's LTC block was under severe actuarial pressure. The company began filing for state-approved rate increases, state by state, year after year. Those increases are ongoing.

How large have the rate increases been?

Genworth's cumulative approved rate increases are substantial. Through Q3 2025, the company had obtained $31.8 billion in cumulative NPV-basis approved rate-increase actions on its closed in-force LTC block.¹

In 2023 alone, Genworth received approval for $549 million in annual premium increases — its record year — at a weighted average increase of 51% across states where those filings were approved.¹

Individual experience varies significantly by state, policy vintage, and benefit design. Some policyholders have absorbed multiple rounds totaling 100–200% over 15 years. Others, in states with slower approval processes, have seen smaller increases. The trajectory is not finished: a substantial filing backlog remained pending as of late 2025, and the closed-block structure means there is no new premium income coming in from new policy sales to offset claims.

Genworth's financial strength ratings in 2026

AM Best rates Genworth Life Insurance Company at B++ (Good).² This is below the A-range ratings that the traditional LTC market's current active writers hold: Mutual of Omaha carries A+, New York Life carries A++, and Thrivent carries A++.

A B++ rating does not mean the company is insolvent or that your claim won't be paid — AM Best's "Good" category indicates the insurer has an adequate ability to meet ongoing insurance obligations. It does mean that financial strength is a legitimate factor when deciding how to respond to a rate increase notice: you are committing future premiums to a carrier with a more constrained financial position than the active-market alternatives.

State guaranty associations also provide a backstop. Most states provide LTC insurance protection up to $300,000 in present-value benefits (some states are higher or lower) for policies issued by an insolvent domestic insurer. Carrier insolvency is a tail risk, but it is not a zero-probability scenario for a company in Genworth's position. A fee-only advisor can help you evaluate this in the context of your specific coverage amount and how far you are from potential claim age.

Is Genworth writing new LTC policies in 2026?

No — not under the traditional Genworth Life Insurance Company name. The company stopped accepting new individual long-term care insurance applications in 2019.³ If you received a Genworth quote from an agent recently, the agent is either working with a legacy policy conversion scenario or has confused the Genworth parent company with its new subsidiary.

Genworth is, however, re-entering the LTC market through a new subsidiary: CareScout Insurance. CareScout Care Assurance is Genworth's re-engineered LTC product — more conservatively priced and with more limited benefit parameters than the legacy policies. As of early 2026, Care Assurance is approved in 37 states.⁴

CareScout's benefit maximums ($250,000 lifetime, $200/day) are substantially lower than the legacy Genworth policies many policyholders hold. At $200/day ($6,000/month) with no inflation protection, a new CareScout policy would cover roughly half of median nursing home costs in most states today — and less than half in 20 years at historical care cost inflation. This is a real planning limitation to evaluate before treating CareScout as a direct replacement for a legacy policy. That said, it is a legitimately different product from the legacy book: more conservatively priced, fully digital, and designed for a narrower risk band.

Your options as a current Genworth LTC policyholder

When you receive a rate increase notice from Genworth, you typically have four options. The right choice depends on your benefit design, how much inflation protection the policy has accumulated, your age, your health, and your overall LTC plan. See our LTC Premium Increase guide for the full framework; below are the Genworth-specific considerations.

Option 1: Pay the increased premium

This is the right choice when your policy has substantial accrued value — particularly compound inflation protection that has grown the benefit significantly above what you could buy today at any price. A Genworth policy purchased in 1998 with 5% compound inflation protection might have a daily benefit of $400–$500/day today. You cannot replicate that coverage in the current market. Paying the increased premium preserves that accumulated inflation value.

Genworth-specific concern: Evaluate whether the premium increase is sustainable relative to the benefit. If you're paying $8,000/year for a policy with a $180,000 lifetime benefit pool at your current benefit level, the math deserves scrutiny — especially if you have enough assets to self-fund that risk.

Option 2: Reduce benefits to maintain the old premium

Genworth typically offers benefit reduction options — shortening the benefit period, reducing the daily benefit, or eliminating inflation protection — to avoid paying the higher premium. The same general principles apply here as with any carrier, but the Genworth situation has one additional wrinkle: if you strip the compound inflation protection from a legacy policy that has already accumulated 20+ years of growth, you're locking in a nominal benefit that will erode for the remainder of the holding period. That is often the wrong trade.

Better approach: If you must reduce benefits, shorten the benefit period before stripping inflation. A 2-year policy with 5% compound inflation protection still pays in today's dollars at claim time. A 5-year policy with no inflation protection pays in 1998 dollars.

Option 3: Exchange into a hybrid life+LTC product (1035 exchange)

If you hold a Genworth policy and also hold a paid-up life insurance policy or non-qualified annuity with substantial cash value, you may be able to execute a 1035 exchange — converting those assets into a hybrid life+LTC product without triggering income tax. This replaces the traditional Genworth policy with a hybrid that has guaranteed premiums (no future rate increases), a death benefit if care is never needed, and more predictable benefits.

The limitation: a 1035 exchange requires existing cash value to fund the exchange. It is not available by paying ongoing premiums into the new product.

Option 4: Drop the policy

Dropping coverage makes sense only in specific circumstances: you have enough assets to genuinely self-fund ($1.5M–$2M+ for singles, $2M–$3M+ for couples, depending on your care cost assumptions), or the benefit is so depleted by accumulated reductions that the remaining coverage provides minimal economic protection. Most people in their 60s and 70s who hold Genworth policies bought them specifically because they don't have those assets. Dropping is often the worst option economically — you lose all accumulated premiums and the inflation-adjusted benefit pool you've been paying into for decades.

If you're looking for new LTC coverage and considering Genworth

If you're shopping for new individual long-term care insurance coverage, Genworth Life Insurance Company itself is not an option — the company is not accepting new applications for traditional individual LTC policies.

The active traditional LTC market in 2026 has four carriers writing policies: Mutual of Omaha (A+), New York Life (A++), Thrivent (A++), and National Guardian Life (A). These carriers represent the current options for traditional standalone LTC insurance. See our carrier comparison guide for detailed AM Best ratings and rate stability records.

CareScout Care Assurance, Genworth's new subsidiary, is technically available for new applicants ages 40–65 in states where it's approved — but the benefit maximums ($200/day, $250,000 lifetime) are limited compared to what the traditional market offers. For many households, the traditional carriers or a hybrid life+LTC product will provide better coverage at comparable cost.

What a fee-only advisor does differently with a Genworth policy

The specific question for most Genworth policyholders is: given what I've paid, what I'd pay going forward, and what I'd receive, does this policy still make sense? That requires modeling:

• The inflated current benefit value (what your benefit pool is worth today after inflation riders)
• Total premiums paid to date + projected future premiums at the new rate
• Expected benefit payout using current claim probabilities and care cost projections
• Self-fund crossover: at what asset level does holding the reserve outperform paying Genworth?
• Hybrid alternative: what does a comparable hybrid product cost, and is the death benefit a meaningful offset?
• Medicaid fallback math: what would Medicaid exposure look like if you dropped coverage and eventually exhausted assets?

A commissioned agent earns nothing on the analysis and earns 50–100% of first-year premiums on a new product sale. The conflict is structural. A fee-only advisor charges for the analysis and earns nothing from the outcome — including if the answer is "keep the Genworth policy and pay the increase."

1. Genworth Financial rate increase data: Genworth Financial Q3 2025 earnings materials; $31.8B cumulative NPV rate increase approvals and $549M 2023 approved annual premium increases at 51% average. investor.genworth.com
2. AM Best rating: AM Best, Genworth Life Insurance Company financial strength rating B++ (Good). ambest.com
3. Genworth exit from new policy sales: Genworth Financial ceased accepting new individual LTC insurance applications in 2019. ThinkAdvisor, 2024
4. CareScout Care Assurance: CareScout Insurance, a Genworth subsidiary, launched Care Assurance with approval in 37 states as of early 2026; ages 40–65, $50K–$250K benefit, $50–$200/day maximum. Genworth investor relations
5. HIPAA per diem and state guaranty fund: IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-28 (2026 per diem $430/day); state guaranty association coverage limits generally $300,000 in LTC benefits, per NAIC model act adopted by most states. Values verified against 2026 rules.

Rate increase figures and CareScout availability verified as of June 2026. AM Best ratings are subject to change; verify current rating at ambest.com before making coverage decisions.