MetLife Stopped Selling Long-Term Care Insurance in 2010. Does Your Cave Creek Parent's Policy Still Pay?

The folder turns up in a desk drawer in Cave Creek, and inside it is a long-term care policy with the MetLife logo on the front. Your mother bought it in 2004. She has paid on it every year since. Then somebody mentions that MetLife got out of the long-term care business a long time ago, and your stomach drops, because it sounds like she has been sending money out the door for more than twenty years in exchange for nothing.

That is not what happened. MetLife stopped selling new long-term care policies. It kept the ones it had already written in force. Those are two different things, and the difference may be worth a great deal to your family right now.

Our guide on how to file a long-term care insurance claim covers the general steps. This article is about the question families ask us when the name on the policy belongs to a company that walked away from the product.

Yes, MetLife Left the Market. No, That Did Not Cancel Anything.

On November 11, 2010, MetLife announced it would discontinue the sale of new long-term care coverage. It continued accepting individual applications received on or before December 30, 2010, and discontinued new enrollments in existing group and multi-life plans during 2011.

The announcement spoke to existing policyholders directly. MetLife said the decision would have "no impact on existing insureds' coverage," and that as long as premiums were paid on time, coverage could not be cancelled. That statement came from a press release MetLife filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Read it for what it says. It addressed cancellation for nonpayment. A policy can still end for other reasons written into the contract, such as exhausting the benefit pool. So the company leaving the market is not by itself a reason to worry. Whether this particular policy stayed in force is a separate question, and it is the one worth your afternoon.

The Long-Term Care Block Generally Stayed With MetLife

This is where families get turned around. MetLife moved a large piece of its individual business into a separate company called Brighthouse Financial. Individual life insurance policies and annuity contracts were affected. Long-term care insurance was not, and MetLife says so on its own customer support pages. It still runs a dedicated long-term care service area with its own claims line, forms library, and care coordinators.

Do not assume, though. Coverage sold under the MetLife name was issued by more than one company over the years, and group certificates work differently from individual policies. Find the issuing company named on the face page of the policy. That entity is who your parent's contract is with, and that is who to call.

Before Anything Else, Confirm the Policy Is Still In Force

Everything downstream depends on this, and it is easy to skip past.

MetLife lists a long-term care claims line at 888-687-0977, with hours of 8:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. The page does not name a time zone, so if you are calling from Arizona, try the morning rather than late afternoon. Ask for three things, then put the same questions in writing:

• Confirmation that the policy is currently in force and not lapsed
• A current copy of the policy, including every rider and endorsement
• Confirmation of whether any reduced-benefit election was ever accepted on this policy

That third one matters more than people expect. In the policies families bring us, we sometimes find that somebody accepted a smaller daily benefit, a shorter benefit period, or a reduced inflation rider years ago in exchange for holding the premium down. A parent may have signed that form a decade ago and never mentioned it. If she did, the benefit you are counting on is not the benefit printed in the original policy.

A phone call is a starting point, not a record. Get the answers in writing.

If the Policy Did Lapse, Arizona May Give You One More Door

Sometimes the answer is that premiums stopped and the policy terminated. Before you accept that, know what Arizona rules require. The current version of the state rule on unintentional lapse took effect January 3, 2005 and was amended in 2017, so whether it reaches your parent's contract depends on when that contract was issued. Ask the insurer in writing what your policy provides.

Under that rule, an individual long-term care policy cannot lapse for nonpayment unless the insurer mails written notice, by first class mail, to the insured and to any third party the insured designated to receive lapse notices, at least 30 days before the termination takes effect. Arizona also requires applicants to either name someone other than themselves to receive those notices or sign a written waiver declining to. If your parent named you and no notice ever arrived, raise it.

The provision that matters most for families dealing with dementia is reinstatement. The rule requires these policies to include a reinstatement option if the policyholder can show she was cognitively impaired or had lost functional capacity before the grace period expired. The request has to be made within five months after termination, and the insurer may collect the past due premium. That is exactly the situation where a parent quietly stopped opening mail because of the condition the policy was meant to cover.

The Honest Part: Premiums on This Block Have Gone Up

We are not going to hand you a comfortable story.

As InsuranceNewsNet reported in September 2024, long-term care policies written in the 1990s and early 2000s were built on assumptions that turned out to be faulty: people lived longer than expected, dropped their coverage far less often than the industry projected, and nursing home costs climbed. Carriers including MetLife have gone back to state regulators repeatedly for increases on policies already in force. The same reporting described a MetLife increase in Ohio of 144 percent in annual premium affecting roughly 8,300 policyholders there, and noted that a federal appeals court that year declined to revive a class action challenging MetLife long-term care rate increases.

So a policy can be entirely valid and still cost meaningfully more than it did five years ago. A rate increase letter is usually not a cancellation notice, and it usually comes with choices and a deadline, though most of those choices amount to paying more or accepting less coverage. Read it the day it arrives. Our article on what a long-term care rate increase letter actually means walks through the options.

How a MetLife Long-Term Care Claim Runs

MetLife publishes its claims process, which makes it easier to plan around. You may consider filing when your parent meets the benefit eligibility requirements defined in her policy and is receiving long-term care services, is about to start, or recently received them. From there it moves through four stages: an intake specialist confirming the paperwork is complete, a care coordinator reviewing eligibility and ordering records from physicians and providers, an eligibility decision, and then reimbursement.

Two details save families weeks.

Anyone can start the claim, but only the insured or her legal representative gets access to the file. MetLife states that if a power of attorney is acting on the insured's behalf, additional paperwork is required to avoid potential delays. Legal documents such as a power of attorney, guardianship papers, or a health care proxy go to MetLife Long Term Care Claims, P.O. Box 14407, Lexington, KY 40512, by fax at 1-859-825-6751, or by email to LTCIntake@metlife.com.

Send documents the way they ask. MetLife requires PDF format and states it cannot open links to third-party storage services such as Google Drive or iCloud, zip files, or password-protected files. Once a claim is approved, invoices are generally processed within about 10 business days of receipt. Report changes in provider or level of care as they happen.

Where the Benefits Can Usually Be Used

MetLife describes covered long-term care services as potentially including home care, adult day care, nursing home care, hospice facility care, and assisted living, and points policyholders back to their own policy for the specifics. That last instruction is the important one. In the older forms we see, an assisted living community is sometimes covered more narrowly than a nursing home, or the setting has to hold a particular license. Whether a specific care home in Cave Creek satisfies a definition written into a 2004 contract is worth confirming before a move, not after.

On the numbers, here is what we see in the field rather than a national average: across the Phoenix and Scottsdale metro, assisted living generally runs about $5,000 to $10,000 a month depending on the community and how much hands-on care a person needs. A daily benefit written in 2004 may cover a real share of that, or a modest one, and knowing which changes the plan.

If the Claim Is Denied

MetLife's own process says that when a claim is found not eligible, the care coordinator provides a letter along with appeal information. Use it. Ask what specific policy language and what specific records the decision rests on, and put your response in writing.

If you believe a claim has been handled improperly, the Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions accepts consumer complaints at 602-364-3100 and insurance.consumers@difi.az.gov. Two things to know first: filing on behalf of someone else, including a spouse, requires a third party consent form, and DIFI's online system gives you only one opportunity to attach documents, so gather the policy and the correspondence before you start. Complaints and the responses to them become public record under Arizona law.

How Integrity Senior Placement Helps

We are not an insurance agency. We do not sell insurance and we are not paid by any insurer. Our help is free to families.

What we do is help you turn a policy and a diagnosis into a workable plan: reading the contract alongside you, helping you build the list of questions to put to the insurer in writing, and then finding the homes in Cave Creek and the north Valley that fit both the care your mother needs and what her coverage will actually reach.

If you have not read the rest of this series, putting a long-term care policy to work covers the fundamentals, and who can file the claim when a parent has dementia covers the authority problem that stops many families before they start.

Start With the Policy Number

Take the folder out of the drawer. Find the issuing company on the face page, then the policy number, the daily benefit, the benefit period, and the elimination period. Call that company, then follow the call with the same questions in writing: is this policy in force, and was any reduced-benefit election ever made.

When you know what you are holding, talk with a placement advisor and we will help you build the plan around it. Reina and David answer the phone at 480.271.7759. The consultation is free and there is no obligation.

Sources: MetLife press release, "MetLife Will Discontinue the Sale of New Long-Term Care Insurance Coverage," November 11, 2010, as filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, for the exit dates and the statement on existing coverage. MetLife customer support pages for the Brighthouse Financial separation and the fact that long-term care insurance was not affected by it. MetLife's published long-term care claims process pages for the claims line and hours, submission addresses, document requirements, claim stages, power of attorney paperwork, covered service settings, appeal information, and invoice processing timeframe. Arizona Administrative Code R20-6-1005, Unintentional Lapse, for the lapse notice, designated recipient, and reinstatement provisions and their effective dates. Arizona Department of Insurance and Financial Institutions for consumer complaint procedures and contact information. InsuranceNewsNet, September 27, 2024, for the history of long-term care pricing assumptions, the Ohio rate increase, and the federal appellate ruling on long-term care rate increase litigation. Cost figures reflect Integrity Senior Placement's firsthand experience placing families in the Phoenix and Scottsdale metro.

Integrity Senior Placement is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or compensated by MetLife or any insurance company. We do not sell insurance. This article is general information, not medical, legal, financial, or insurance advice. Long-term care policy terms vary significantly by policy form and year of issue, so your parent's actual contract governs. Confirm all coverage questions with the insurer in writing before making decisions.

Published September 8, 2026. The facts in this article were verified against the sources listed above on that date.