Insurers Raising Premiums, Changing Terms on Long-term Care Policies

If you’re selling long-term care insurance to clients, it’s best to stay away from carriers with a history of raising premiums or discontinuing other types of insurance coverage.

Several insurers already have raised premiums this year. Meanwhile, MetLife stopped selling long-term care insurance last November. Triggering these moves is the fact that lapse rates on long-term care coverage are proving higher than insurance company actuaries estimated. Because people are holding onto their coverage, insurers are paying more claims than expected. This is taking a toll on the carriers’ bottom line and reserve requirements.

MetLife will continue to accept new applications for individual long-term care insurance policies received on or before Dec. 30, 2010. MetLife also announced that this year, it will be discontinuing new enrollments into existing group and multi-life long-term care insurance plans. The timing will vary based on existing contractual obligations.

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Record Generosity at Schwab, Fidelity Giving Accounts

Double-digit market returns in 2010 helped boost Americans’ charitable spirit, with top donor advised funds reporting new records in charitable contributions, industry executives report. Fidelity Charitable Gift Fund, the nation’s largest donor advised fund program with $5.4 billion in assets, said donors directed that a record $1.2 billion be sent to not-for-profit groups last year. Incoming contributions to the Fidelity program exceeded $1.6 billion last year, up 42 percent from 2009.

Meanwhile, Schwab Charitable said contributions to its donor advised fund reached a record $1.09 billion, more than double the amount in 2009. Schwab Charitable’s assets exceed $3 billion. Perhaps it shouldn’t come as a surprise; the Center on Wealth and Philanthropy at Boston College predicted last summer that charitable giving by individuals in the United States would increase in 2010 by 3 to 4.5 percent.

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United Capital Buys Three RIAs, Adds $2.2B in AUM

United Capital Financial Partners (UCFP) today said it has closed on three new RIA acquisitions with combined assets under management of about $2.2 billion, further boosting the firm’s presence in an M&A market that’s growing increasingly competitive. United Chief Executive Officer Joseph J. Duran said the three acquisitions —Zirkin-Cutler Investments Inc., with $1.6 billion in AUM in Bethesda, Md.; and MarketSpace Financial in Albuquerque, N.M., and Sovereign Wealth Management in Memphis, Tenn., with combined AUM of about $600 million—closed on Dec. 31. “It was a very busy New Year’s,” Duran said.

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HNW Advisors Say: Getting Primed for Growth

Fortigent’s annual Winter Forum conference kicked off in a blaze of optimism last night in Beverly Hills.

“Everybody is feeling better,” said Scott Welch, senior managing director for Fortigent, the Rockville, Md.-based outsourced wealth management platform provider whose 90 client firms have about $45 billion in assets under management.

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