New York Life Long-Term Care Insurance: Products, Dividends, and Rate Stability in 2026

Most major LTC insurance carriers — Genworth, John Hancock, Transamerica, MetLife, Prudential — have stopped writing new policies. New York Life is one of only four traditional LTC carriers still accepting applications in 2026, and the only one that also offers a hybrid life+LTC product (Asset Flex) alongside its traditional line. For buyers evaluating the strongest-rated carrier available, here's what an independent review of New York Life looks like.

Why New York Life's market position is unusual in 2026

The traditional LTC insurance market has undergone a sustained contraction over the past 15 years. Carriers that priced policies in the 1990s on optimistic actuarial assumptions — low claim rates, high lapse rates, high investment returns — faced mounting losses as those assumptions proved wrong. The result was a wave of exits: MetLife (2010), Prudential (2012), Aetna (2016), MassMutual (2018), Genworth (2019 for new policies), John Hancock (2016), Transamerica (2021).

New York Life took a different path. Rather than exiting, the company maintained underwriting discipline — applying stricter health standards than some competitors, pricing new policies more conservatively, and continuing to invest in its LTC claims infrastructure. The result is a carrier that is still writing new business across all three of its LTC product lines in 2026, with a rate stability record meaningfully better than the carriers that chose to exit.

The mutual company structure matters here. Unlike publicly traded insurers with quarterly earnings pressure, New York Life has no shareholders demanding short-term returns. Its stated mission is policyholder protection, and its LTC division reflects that: premiums are priced with long-term sustainability in mind, even when that means higher initial cost.

New York Life's three LTC insurance products

My Care: Affordable traditional LTC for AARP members and others

My Care is New York Life's more accessible traditional LTC product — simpler benefit design, lower benefit pools, and more affordable premiums than the comprehensive Secure Care line. Since 2014, AARP has endorsed My Care and made it available to its membership, giving NY Life distribution through one of the largest consumer affinity groups in the U.S.

Key My Care parameters:

• Benefit pools from approximately $50,000 to $250,000
• Benefit periods from 2 to 7 years
• Daily benefit amounts customizable to your care gap
• Inflation protection options (including compound)
• Partnership-qualified in available states

A meaningful differentiator: New York Life has paid dividends on My Care policies for six consecutive years as of 2026.² Dividends in traditional LTC insurance are rare — most carriers do not pay them on LTC products at all. When dividends are credited, they can reduce out-of-pocket premium costs, effectively making an already-competitive product less expensive over time.

My Care is distributed through AARP's member channels, as well as through New York Life's career agent network. AARP endorsement means members have an additional access point and a consumer-advocacy relationship in the background, though coverage terms and carrier obligations remain governed by New York Life directly.

Secure Care: Comprehensive traditional LTC with partnership qualification

Secure Care is New York Life's full-featured traditional LTC product, designed for buyers who want the richest available benefit design from a top-rated carrier. It covers professional care across all major settings — nursing homes, assisted living facilities, adult day care centers, and in-home care — and is partnership-qualified in most states where partnership programs operate.

Key Secure Care parameters:

• Comprehensive care setting coverage (home, AL, nursing home, adult day)
• Daily benefit amounts set at purchase, with inflation protection options
• Benefit periods typically 2–7+ years, with unlimited options available in some states
• Partnership LTC qualification in applicable states — providing dollar-for-dollar Medicaid asset disregard when benefits are exhausted
• Shared care rider available for couples (combined benefit pool, transferable unused benefits)
• Third-party lapse notification (protects policyholders from accidental coverage lapses)

In 2026, New York Life began paying dividends on Secure Care policies for the first time — an expansion of the dividend program that previously applied only to My Care.² This is a meaningful signal of the product line's financial performance relative to actuarial assumptions; dividends are paid when the block performs better than expected.

Secure Care is accessible only through New York Life's career agent network (not through independent brokers). This has an important implication: a career agent's presentation will focus on New York Life products, not a multi-carrier comparison. If you want Secure Care evaluated alongside Mutual of Omaha, Thrivent, and NGL with identical benefit specifications, you need either a fee-only advisor or an independent LTC specialist who can quote all four carriers simultaneously.

Asset Flex: Hybrid life + LTC with guaranteed premiums

Asset Flex is New York Life's hybrid long-term care product — a whole life insurance policy with an LTC acceleration rider. It provides three simultaneous guarantees that traditional LTC insurance cannot offer:

1. LTC benefits if care is needed — the death benefit accelerates tax-free to pay for qualifying long-term care
2. A death benefit if care is never needed — heirs receive a life insurance payout
3. A return of premium option — if circumstances change, you can surrender the policy for at least your net premiums paid

Key Asset Flex parameters:

• Benefit period: Total LTC benefit periods of 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, or 7 years (combining acceleration of death benefit with optional Extension of Benefits rider)
• Elimination period: 90 service days for facility care; 0-day waiting period for home care (when using care coordination services)³
• Inflation protection: 3% automatic compounding option; 5% future purchase option
• Premium structure: Fixed and guaranteed to never increase — the core advantage over traditional LTC insurance
• Funding flexibility: Single-pay, 5-pay, 10-pay, or ongoing annual premiums; lump-sum 1035 exchange from existing life insurance or annuity
• Health classes: Preferred Plus, Preferred, Standard Plus, Standard — 10–15% premium difference between health tiers

Asset Flex has been recently repriced and is considered particularly competitive for healthy males aged 60–70, where it offers meaningful leverage on the premium-to-benefit ratio relative to other hybrid carriers.³

The 0-day elimination period for home care deserves attention. Most traditional LTC policies have 90-day elimination periods that apply to all care settings including home care — meaning you pay all costs out of pocket for 90 days before benefits start. Asset Flex waives this for home care when the care coordinator's plan of care is in place, which can matter significantly in the most common care scenario: recovering from a hip fracture or managing early cognitive decline at home.

New York Life rate stability: the historical record

Rate stability is the primary concern for traditional LTC buyers, and legitimately so — the history of Genworth, John Hancock, and Transamerica demonstrates what happens when carriers price policies aggressively and then seek large state-approved increases years later.

New York Life's rate increase history is meaningfully different from those carriers. The company has made modest inforce adjustments on select older policy blocks, but the magnitude and frequency have been substantially lower than the carriers that ultimately exited the market. Several structural factors contribute to this:

• Conservative initial pricing. NY Life historically priced LTC policies more conservatively than competitors — higher initial premiums in exchange for lower probability of future increases.
• Continued new business volume. Unlike closed-block carriers (Genworth, JH, Transamerica), NY Life continues writing new policies. New premium income provides actuarial balance that a carrier managing only a closed block cannot achieve.
• Mutual company reserve discipline. With no equity shareholders and a long-term focus, NY Life has built and maintained LTC reserves at higher levels than many competitors. The 2026 dividend announcement on Secure Care policies — the first ever — is a signal that the reserve situation is healthy.
• Strict underwriting. NY Life applies stricter health standards than some competitors, meaning the insured population is on average healthier and files claims later and less frequently than more permissively underwritten blocks.

That said, "better than Genworth" is not the same as "guaranteed stable." No traditional LTC carrier can contractually guarantee premiums will never rise — state insurance regulators permit increases when actuarially justified. Buyers who need absolute certainty on future premium levels should evaluate Asset Flex or other hybrid products instead, where premiums are contractually guaranteed from issue.

Who should consider New York Life LTC insurance

My Care is worth evaluating when:

• You're an AARP member seeking an accessible entry point to LTC insurance with dividends
• Your planning need is a defined benefit pool ($50K–$250K) to cover the most likely care scenarios, rather than maximum coverage sizing
• You're working within a tighter premium budget and want a strong carrier at a more accessible price point
• You want to get coverage in place before health changes close the underwriting window

Secure Care is worth evaluating when:

• You want the richest available traditional LTC benefit design from the highest-rated carrier
• Partnership policy qualification matters for your Medicaid asset protection strategy (see our Partnership LTC guide)
• You're a couple who wants a shared care rider and want both policies at A++ from the same carrier
• You want the full feature set — daily benefit, inflation protection, third-party lapse notification — and are willing to pay premium pricing for it
• You're between 55 and 65 in good health; NY Life's stricter underwriting means applying at peak insurability is especially important

Asset Flex is worth evaluating when:

• You have existing life insurance or non-qualified annuity cash value that could be repositioned via a 1035 exchange — converting embedded gains into LTC coverage without a tax event
• Premium stability is non-negotiable; you cannot absorb the possibility of future rate increases
• You want a death benefit for heirs if LTC is never needed (eliminating the "wasted premium" concern with traditional coverage)
• You're a healthy male aged 60–70, where Asset Flex has been recently repriced to be particularly competitive
• You want the 0-day home care elimination period, which is common in home care scenarios

New York Life traditional LTC vs. hybrid LTC: the decision framework

Tax advantages of New York Life LTC insurance in 2026

All three New York Life LTC products qualify under IRC §7702B, giving them the same HIPAA tax treatment as any qualified long-term care insurance policy:

• Benefit exclusion: Benefits received are excluded from income up to $430/day ($156,950/year) — the 2026 HIPAA per diem limit.⁴ For indemnity-style benefits this cap matters; for reimbursement policies benefits are generally tax-free regardless.
• Premium deductibility: Eligible LTC premiums are deductible as medical expenses, subject to the 7.5% AGI floor. 2026 HIPAA-capped deductible amounts by age: under 41 ($500), 41–50 ($930), 51–60 ($1,860), 61–70 ($4,960), over 70 ($6,200).⁴
• Self-employed above-the-line: Self-employed individuals deduct eligible LTC premiums above the line, bypassing the 7.5% AGI floor.
• C-corporation unlimited deduction: Employer-paid LTC premiums for employees are a fully deductible business expense under IRC §162 with no dollar cap. See our business owner LTC guide for entity-by-entity details.
• Asset Flex 1035 exchange: Repositioning existing life insurance or non-qualified annuity into Asset Flex via IRC §1035 avoids recognition of any embedded gains in the old policy — a significant tax advantage when the old contract has appreciated substantially. See our 1035 exchange guide.

New York Life LTC underwriting: what to expect

New York Life is generally considered a stricter underwriter than some competing traditional LTC carriers. Four health classification tiers apply to Asset Flex (Preferred Plus, Preferred, Standard Plus, Standard), with 10–15% premium differences between tiers. My Care and Secure Care also apply health classifications; the specific tier names differ by product.

The industry-wide underwriting reality applies here: AALTCI data shows approximately 12% of applicants in their early 50s are declined, rising to 47–50% by the late 60s. New York Life's stricter standards may mean that some applicants who would be issued at standard rates by Mutual of Omaha or NGL are declined by NY Life — or issued at a higher rate class. If you have a health condition that might affect insurability, an independent fee-only advisor or LTC specialist can tell you which active carrier will give you the best rate for your specific health history without requiring multiple formal applications.

See our full LTC insurance underwriting guide for the complete breakdown of health tiers, automatic disqualifiers, gray-zone conditions, and alternatives if you're declined.

What a fee-only advisor does when comparing New York Life against other carriers

A New York Life career agent earns 50–100% first-year commissions on My Care or Secure Care policy sales. This creates the standard conflict: the agent presents the carrier they represent as the best option, regardless of how it actually compares on an apples-to-apples basis.

A fee-only advisor evaluating New York Life against other active carriers does the following differently:

• Four-carrier traditional comparison. Mutual of Omaha, Thrivent, NGL, and New York Life are all quoted with identical specs: same daily benefit, same benefit period, same inflation protection, same elimination period. Often NY Life is 15–25% more expensive per dollar of coverage — the question is whether the premium for A++ vs. A+ is worth it given your planning context.
• Asset Flex vs. competing hybrids. Lincoln MoneyGuard, Nationwide CareMatters, and OneAmerica Asset-Care are evaluated alongside Asset Flex. The 0-day home care EP and Asset Flex's recent repricing may make it competitive for specific profiles; for others, a competing hybrid offers better leverage.
• Self-fund crossover modeling. For households with $2M+ in liquid assets, a fee-only advisor models whether any LTC insurance purchase — including New York Life's products — makes financial sense versus building a dedicated self-fund reserve. Many HNW households that are sold A++ carrier policies would be better served by self-funding.
• 1035 exchange feasibility. If you hold an existing life insurance policy or non-qualified annuity, the advisor models whether Asset Flex or a competing hybrid funded via 1035 exchange delivers better economics than paying new traditional premiums from cash flow.

See our LTC insurance company comparison for a side-by-side of all active traditional and hybrid carriers, and our how to choose LTC insurance guide for the complete buyer framework.

1. New York Life AM Best A++ rating: New York Life Insurance Company carries an A++ (Superior) financial strength rating from AM Best — the highest possible rating — as of 2026. Corroborated by multiple carrier review sources. ambest.com
2. New York Life LTC dividends: NYL My Care has paid dividends for six consecutive years as of 2026. Secure Care dividends paid for the first time in 2026. Reported by RetirementLiving and Breeze 2026 carrier reviews. RetirementLiving.com 2026 NY Life LTC Review
3. Asset Flex product parameters: Benefit periods 2–7 years, 90-service-day facility EP, 0-day home care EP with care coordination, 3% compound / 5% FPO inflation options, four health classes (Preferred Plus through Standard). Based on carrier materials and independent advisor reviews verified through mid-2026. newyorklife.com Asset Flex; CompareLongTermCare.org NY Life review
4. 2026 HIPAA LTC tax values: IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-28 establishes the 2026 per diem exclusion at $430/day and eligible premium deductibility limits by age ($500/$930/$1,860/$4,960/$6,200 for five age brackets). IRS Rev. Proc. 2025-28
5. LTC carrier market overview: Active traditional LTC writers in 2026: Mutual of Omaha, New York Life, Thrivent, National Guardian Life. Active hybrid writers include Lincoln Financial, Nationwide, OneAmerica, Pacific Life. AALTCI tracks carrier activity and denial rates by age. AALTCI (American Association for Long-Term Care Insurance)

Carrier ratings and product details verified as of June 2026. AM Best ratings are subject to change; verify at ambest.com before making coverage decisions. Product availability, benefit parameters, and dividend eligibility vary by state and policy year.