Buddy Study Podcast

A fully guaranteed hybrid LTCi product with a true cash indemnity benefit can simplify the claim conversation for your clients. Get a practical overview of Securian's SecureCare 4 and where it fits in long-term care planning.

In this carrier session of the Buddy Study Podcast, Tim Goh, SecureCare Regional Vice President at Securian, walks financial advisors and insurance professionals through the SecureCare 4 design, its recent enhancements, and the underwriting process. The conversation covers where the product shows most competitively, how it supports business owner planning, and practical steps that help advisors move cases forward with fewer delays. Tim also highlights the advisor resources Securian provides, including its illustration software and presentations built for affluent self-funders, business owners, and charitably minded clients.

We explore:

• How the SecureCare cash indemnity benefit works, from claim requirements to care concierge support
• Guaranteed premiums, return of premium, reduced paid-up options, and paying a policy up early
• Recent SecureCare 4 enhancements, including a retroactive elimination period benefit, a new 20 pay option, and a 100% international benefit
• Where SecureCare 4 is most competitive by age band and payment schedule in single life, non-qualified cases
• How separating the life and long-term care portions of the premium supports business owner and tax deductibility conversations
• Underwriting best practices, including prescreen IDs, phone interview preparation, and cover letters for nuanced answers
• What Securian is considering for SecureCare 5 and a qualified solution in 2027

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Position SecureCare 4 clearly within LTC planning and client conversations
• Introduce long-term care planning into business owner and key employee discussions
• Prepare clients for underwriting and reduce avoidable delays
• Use carrier tools, illustrations, and presentations to support better planning outcomes

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
1:01 The SecureCare Lineup: SecureCare 4 and SecureCare UL
3:09 How the Cash Indemnity Benefit Works
5:23 Death Benefit, Return of Premium, and Reduced Paid-Up
7:29 SecureCare 4 Enhancements and International Benefit
12:35 Target Ages and Care Concierge Claim Support
16:43 Business Owner Planning and Tax Deductibility
20:15 Guaranteed Premiums and Early Pay-Up Options
24:02 Value-Add Advisor Presentations and Prospect Profiles
32:25 Underwriting, Phone Interviews, and Prescreen IDs
41:50 Advisor Site Resources and Illustration Tips
45:21 Looking Ahead: SecureCare 5 and 2027 Plans

Watch the replay video version: https://youtu.be/hsIxECoBy9c

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Running one quote and calling it the best price sounds efficient until a client fits a niche you never thought to check. Learn how to find the product sweet spots that match long-term care coverage to the client in front of you.

Jason Dutra and Marc Glickman walk through the product mechanics where specific carriers quietly outperform the rest of the LTCi market. A sweet spot is simply something one carrier, or a small group of carriers, offers that others do not. Knowing where those live turns a routine quote into a plan the client feels was built for them.

We explore:

• How joint pricing on NGL Essential LTC in California works, including gender-neutral rates and inflation at older ages
•  Third-pool shared care and why it adds benefit dollars rather than just redistributing them
• Which carriers offer a spousal discount when only one spouse applies
• True joint survivorship versus two individual policies with a couples discount
• Issue age bands at both ends, from traditional coverage down to age 18 to annuity solutions up to age 85
• Payment mode flexibility, qualified dollars, and limited-duration inflation protection
• Why understanding a carrier's risk appetite makes you a better partner and a stronger advocate in underwriting

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Match product mechanics to a specific client goal instead of defaulting to a familiar carrier
• Quote joint and individual designs side by side before assuming which one wins
• Use pre-qualification to protect clients when joint pricing is on the table
• Spend less time hunting for products and more time listening to clients

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
0:46 How Buddy Study Defines a Product Sweet Spot
3:25 Pricing Sweet Spots and NGL's California Joint Rates
8:00 Carrier Risk Appetite and Being a Good Partner
11:37 Third-Pool Shared Care and Spousal Discounts
15:16 Joint Survivorship vs. Two Individual Policies
17:42 Joint Sweet Spots in LTC Annuities
21:33 Gender and Demographic Pricing Advantages
24:13 Issue Age Bands: Youngest and Oldest Clients
30:13 Payment Modes, Qualified Dollars, and 10-Pay
39:08 Inflation Protection and Underwriting Sweet Spots
45:27 Worksite Products, Closing Takeaways, and Q&A

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Roughly one in four adults today has no children, and for long-term care insurance advisors, that demographic represents a widening gap in traditional estate planning. Learn how a purpose-built fiduciary structure helps childfree and childless clients answer a question their legal documents alone can't: who steps in when there's no next of kin to rely on.

In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, Scott Barnes, senior advisor to Childfree Trust and director of financial planning at its sister company, Childfree Wealth, joins the show to unpack what he calls the fiduciary void. For the growing share of adults who are childfree by choice or childless by circumstance, naming a medical proxy, financial power of attorney, executor, and trustee often means scattering these roles among friends, siblings, or aging parents who aren't equipped to carry them out.

We explore:

• The distinction between childfree by choice and childless by circumstance, and why advisors shouldn't assume which applies to a client
• The fiduciary void: who serves as medical POA, financial POA, executor, and trustee when there's no natural next of kin
• Why most trust companies stop short of offering medical power of attorney, and how a handful of states fill that gap
• How estate planning for childfree clients shifts from leaving a legacy to emergency and contingency planning
• What a childfree-focused trust and care-plan service provides, from legal documents to pet trusts and 24/7 emergency response
• Why long-term care insurance often matters more than life insurance for childfree clients, and how it fits into a broader care plan
• Pricing, service guarantees, and how advisors can keep managing client assets under a directed trust structure

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Recognize when a client's family structure calls for a different estate planning conversation
• Ask sharper questions about who a client has, or hasn't, named as POA, executor, and trustee
• Position long-term care insurance as part of a complete contingency plan for childfree and childless clients
• Know when a specialized resource like Childfree Trust can fill gaps traditional estate planning leaves open

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

Knowing a carrier's brochure is not the same as knowing where its product actually wins. Learn how Thrivent's traditional long-term care offering is built, and where it fits in your LTCi planning conversations.

In this carrier session of the Buddy Study Podcast, Anita Svoboda of Thrivent walks financial advisors and insurance professionals through a full product overview of Thrivent's traditional long-term care insurance, including the structural details that rarely make it into a one-page summary. She covers the company's fraternal structure, its LTC history dating back to 1987, and the 2016 product series still being sold today.

This is a working product education session, built for advisors who want to know exactly how the mechanics function before they quote a case.

We explore:

• How Thrivent's elimination period credits one day of service as seven days
• The flexible increased benefit rider and why clients control when they exercise it
• The cash benefit rider, its separate pool, and how it pays alongside reimbursement
• Discount structures for couples, domestic partners, and long-term cohabitants
• Shared care mechanics, including what happens when one spouse exhausts both pools
• Recent claims data, top causes of claim, and the most common reasons claims are denied
• Where underwriting has loosened and where postponements still apply

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Evaluate where a traditional LTCi product fits alongside hybrid alternatives
• Explain rider mechanics to clients with precision rather than generalities
• Anticipate underwriting outcomes before submitting an application
• Quote with a clearer sense of state-by-state competitiveness

For advisors building out their traditional long-term care insurance bench, this session offers the level of product detail that supports confident client conversations and cleaner case placement.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
0:44 Meet Anita Svoboda and the Newman Long-Term Care Connection
4:13 Who Thrivent Is: Fraternal Roots, Ratings, and LTC History
10:25 Coverage, State Availability, and Product at a Glance
14:20 Built-In Benefits: Waiver, Care Coordination, Alternative Care
18:25 Discounts and Rating Classes
21:30 The Flexible Increased Benefit Rider Explained
27:14 The Cash Benefit Rider and Its Separate Pool
29:59 Shared Care, Non-Forfeiture, and Return of Premium
33:47 Claims Data and Top Reasons Claims Are Denied
36:53 Underwriting Update: Diabetes, Cardiac, and Postponements
40:49 Care Forward, Quoting Tools, and Closing Takeaways

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

A full calendar is what separates a steady practice from a stalled one. Learn how insurance professionals and financial advisors build referral partnerships that bring qualified long-term care prospects to them.

There is only so far your own prospecting can take you in LTCi. Referral partners expand your reach, warm up your leads, and put you in front of clients who are already financially qualified. This episode walks through who those partners are, how to find them, and what it actually takes to turn a new relationship into consistent, quality lead flow.

We explore:

• Why financial advisors are the strongest natural pairing for long-term care specialists, in both directions
• How the underwriting gap creates referral opportunities with other insurance professionals
• Where P&C agents, benefits brokers, and reverse mortgage specialists fit into your network
• What to cover in the game planning call when onboarding a new referral partner
• How a short pre-education video makes the handoff nearly effortless for your partner
• Why training partners on which clients to refer prevents adverse selection in your lead flow
• How reporting and a simple intake form keep partners confident instead of feeling left in the dark
• What LinkedIn approach demonstrates about consistent visibility and attracting the right partners

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Identify the professionals already positioned to refer long-term care business
• Build partnerships that send clients in both directions, not just one
• Walk into conferences and networking events knowing what to listen for
• Keep referral partners informed so the relationship keeps producing

Referral partnerships are not a marketing tactic bolted onto your practice. They are the structure that lets a specialist stay a specialist while the right clients keep arriving.

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
0:40 Why Referral Partners Are the Lifeblood of a Practice
3:22 The Underwriting Gap That Creates Referral Opportunity
7:18 Knowing Your Value Before You Network
9:14 Financial Advisors: The Strongest Pairing
13:54 Insurance Agents, P&C, and Benefits Brokers
19:24 Non-Traditional Sources and Working Conferences
22:07 The Game Planning Call and Pre-Education Video
25:04 Training Partners on Which Clients to Refer
28:05 Reporting and Intake Forms That Build Trust
33:46 LinkedIn, Visibility, and Authentic Content
45:48 Final Thoughts & Advisor Takeaways

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Cross-selling sounds like something only multi-line producers do, until you look at how much a long-term care fact-find already tells you about a client. Learn how LTCi specialists can turn the work they are already doing into new conversations, stronger referral partnerships, and a fuller calendar.

Long-term care specialists gather more information than almost anyone else in insurance: health history, financials, family dynamics, care preferences, and timing. In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, we look at why that depth of fact-finding puts LTCi specialists in a uniquely strong position to spot complementary needs, and how to raise those needs without turning a planning conversation into a product pitch. The goal is not to become a generalist. It is to know enough to serve the client well and to have somewhere reliable to send them.

We explore:

• Why long-term care is one of the hardest needs to establish, and what that means for sequencing
• Medicare as the most common pairing for LTCi specialists, and where coverage gaps open the LTC conversation
• Disability insurance and LTCi as complementary coverage, including how one claim can affect both
• Critical illness, accident, and hospital indemnity plans as gap fillers during the elimination period
• Why group LTCi is complementary rather than competitive, and how a group policyholder arrives pre-educated
• Inflation protection limits on group plans, and where the individual market rounds out a plan
• Reverse mortgages as an alternative funding source, and why an expert partner matters

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Recognize cross-sell openings inside the fact-finding they already complete
• Time and sequence conversations so clients stay focused on the highest need first
• Build reciprocal referral partnerships with specialists in other product lines
• Expand their business without taking on product lines they do not want to learn

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
 2:12 Why LTC Specialists Are Built for Cross-Selling
 5:23 Medicare: The Most Natural Pairing
 10:50 Disability Insurance and LTCi as Sister Products
 14:44 Critical Illness and the Elimination Period Gap
 19:15 Becoming a Lead Source for Referral Partners
 27:02 Group LTCi as a Complementary Opportunity
 31:33 Inflation Protection Gaps in Group Plans
 35:20 Sequencing and Timing the Cross-Sell
 38:26 Accident and Hospital Indemnity as Entry Points
 42:45 Reverse Mortgages as an LTC Funding Source
 46:12 Networking Scripts & Advisor Takeaways

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

Reading a carrier announcement is not the same as knowing the product. This mid-year LTCi market review revisits what actually changed in 2026, and what those changes mean for your next case.

Much of the year's product news landed in a compressed window early in Q1, which means a lot of advisors caught the headlines and never circled back. In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, we walk through the year's notable launches, repricings, and underwriting updates across traditional long-term care insurance, hybrid life plans, annuity-based LTC solutions, and short-term care, with practical commentary on where each one now fits in a planning conversation.

We explore:

• How a new policy generation reshaped benefit design, from age basis to monthly benefit structures and elimination period credit, and which features were traded away in the repricing
• Underwriting movement on family history, cognitive testing, and conditions that were previously auto-declined
• Why a plan that does not compare cleanly on a spreadsheet can be harder to sell, even when the product itself is strong
• A new annuity-based LTC entrant, including underwriting classes, benefit multipliers, and what a high approval target signals about plan design
• How short-term care benefit ceilings, riders, and add-in benefits are narrowing the gap with traditional LTC
• A hybrid refresh that added benefits without a rate increase, and what expanded payment flexibility opens up for younger buyers
• Guaranteed issue annuity LTC updates, including a lower minimum issue age and a higher guaranteed roll-up

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Refresh their working knowledge of the current individual LTCi landscape
• Match newer solutions to clients who did not fit a year ago
• Understand how underwriting shifts open up specific case types
• Spot in-force and follow-up sales opportunities created by product changes

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview

2:18 Traditional LTCi: A New Generation of Benefit Design

8:01 Underwriting Updates on the Traditional Side

11:41 Why Plan Design Affects Spreadsheet Comparisons

14:19 A New Annuity-Based LTC Solution

15:55 Underwriting Classes, Multipliers, and Claim Design

20:06 Field Notes on Exchanges and Follow-Up Offers

24:48 The Six Underwriting Questions, Walked Through

27:18 Short-Term Care Raises the Benefit Ceiling

34:48 A Hybrid Refresh With No Rate Increase

41:02 Guaranteed Issue Annuity Updates

44:56 Closing Thoughts and Advisor Takeaways

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

EPISODE DESCRIPTION

Assuming a prospect already understands long-term care sounds harmless until it costs you the sale. Learn how experienced LTCi producers structure prospect education so no client gets left behind.

In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, we break down how to build a long-term care education process that works whether your prospect is hearing about LTC for the first time or has already done their own research. From framing a holistic four-pillar planning conversation to reading whether a prospect is analytical or emotional, this session covers the foundational habits that keep advisors from skipping steps their prospects still need.

We explore:

• Why LTC education should never assume prior knowledge, no matter how confident the audience seems
• The four pillars of a holistic long-term care plan: family, self-funding, insurance, and government
• How to reframe "I'll self-fund" as part of a plan rather than an objection to overcome
• Why showing prospects the full menu of funding solutions builds trust and prevents missed sales
• How to read analytical versus emotional clients and adjust the conversation accordingly
• Using pricing tools to make cost conversations approachable instead of intimidating
• Why coaching clients to buy coverage they can keep matters more than maximizing benefit amounts

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Build a repeatable, foundational education process for prospects at any experience level
• Handle the self-funding objection with confidence, without invalidating the client's instinct
• Tailor presentations to different client communication styles
• Use available tools to make long-term care coverage feel accessible from the first conversation

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Episode Overview
 4:06 The Four Pillars of a Holistic LTC Plan
 11:07 Family, Insurance, and the Elimination Period Gap
 14:11 Reframing the "I'll Self-Fund" Objection
 17:55 Why Showing Multiple Funding Solutions Matters
 21:05 Explaining Life Hybrid Plans on Group Webinars
 28:19 Reading Analytical vs. Emotional Clients
 32:39 Why Prospects Don't Care How Much You Know
 35:28 New Marketing Portal Filtering and Resources
 41:17 Cost-of-Care Stats and Planning Guide Resources
 46:27 Using the Quick Quote Calculator With Prospects
 48:52 Buy What You Can Keep & Wrap-Up

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

Asking a client about their income and health history can feel intrusive, until you realize it's the difference between a smooth long-term care approval and a painful decline. Learn how strong field underwriting protects your clients, your pipeline, and your reputation.

In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, a veteran LTCi field underwriting specialist joins the study group to break down how to ask the right questions before an application ever reaches underwriting. From financial discovery to medical red flags, the conversation covers a repeatable process advisors can use to reduce declines, save time, and build trust with clients and referral partners alike. The discussion also works through a live case study, showing how these principles hold up when a real client presents an unfamiliar medical condition.

We explore:

• Why decline rates vary so widely between agents, and what that means for your clients
• The "Say Yes to the Dress" mindset for presenting product options based on budget
• How to uncover a client's true financial capacity to determine the right benefit and duration
• Key medical interview questions around medications, T-scores, MRIs, and lab abnormalities
• Why pending tests, unresolved treatment recommendations, and CPAP compliance can trigger denials
• The often-overlooked underwriting question about a client's plans to live abroad in retirement
• A live case study walking through how to underwrite an unfamiliar diagnosis

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Ask more thorough, guided questions during the discovery process
• Reduce back-and-forth with underwriters and speed up approvals
• Present product options in a way that builds client trust instead of resistance
• Approach unfamiliar medical conditions with a repeatable underwriting framework

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome & Session Overview
 1:23 Why Field Underwriting Matters: A Decline Rate Story
 7:34 The "Say Yes to the Dress" Approach to Budget Talk
 11:14 Uncovering a Client's True Financial Capacity
 13:57 Building the Health Interview: Meds and T-Scores
 16:28 MRI and Lab Work Red Flags to Watch For
 20:03 Joint Issues, Compliance Gaps, and Denial Triggers
 30:52 The Overlooked Question: International Residency Plans
 32:02 Case Study: Underwriting a Chiari Malformation
 44:18 Inside the Field Underwriting Questionnaire
 47:43 Family History of Longevity and Retirement Risk
 49:47 Closing Thoughts and Advisor Takeaways

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.

Knowing which carrier to approach for a health-impaired client can be the difference between a placed case and a lost one. Learn how to match the right LTCi carrier to the right health profile, every time.

In long-term care insurance, underwriting is where cases are won or lost. Knowing the general guidelines is not enough. The advisors and specialists who consistently place difficult cases are the ones who have built a mental library of carrier-specific underwriting sweet spots: the conditions, medications, and health profiles where one carrier will consider what others will not.

In this episode of the Buddy Study Podcast, we dig into underwriting sweet spots for individual LTCi, covering the health conditions and medication scenarios that most commonly challenge advisors, and which carriers tend to offer the most flexibility in each category.

We explore:

• What an underwriting sweet spot is and why building a personal library of them matters
• Why mastering sweet spots saves cases, improves placement ratios, and makes advisors more referable
• Height and weight considerations, including carriers with no build chart or gender-separated charts
• Diabetes underwriting across type 1, type 2, insulin dependency, and A1C thresholds
• Recent surgeries, physical therapy, cortisone injections, and reduced waiting period options
• Joint replacements and how carrier flexibility scales with the number of joints replaced
• Off-label prescription medications and which carriers take a more liberal approach
• Pacemakers, cancer history, mental health conditions, and recreational marijuana use
• Table rating, guaranteed issue, and non-insurance alternatives for hard-to-place cases

This episode is designed to help advisors:

• Identify the right carrier earlier in the sales process to avoid surprises and preserve client momentum
• Pre-qualify more confidently when health history adds complexity to a case
• Build a personal underwriting sweet spot reference they can draw on for years
• Become the go-to resource for referral partners who need a knowledgeable LTC planning specialist

CHAPTER MARKERS

0:00 Welcome and Episode Overview
 1:20 What Is an Underwriting Sweet Spot
 2:07 Why Sweet Spots Matter: Saving Cases and Placement Ratios
 6:55 Finding Opportunities Others Miss: The Referral Advantage
 9:08 Height and Weight: Carriers With Lenient Build Charts
 13:36 Diabetes: Type 1, Insulin Dependency, and A1C Thresholds
 21:45 Recent Surgeries, PT, and Cortisone Injection Timelines
 24:11 Joint Replacements: How Carrier Flexibility Scales
 25:57 Medications and Off-Label Prescriptions: The Aetna Advantage
 33:47 Pacemakers, Narcotic Use, and Cardiac Conditions
 37:04 Mental Health, Marijuana, and Cancer History Considerations
 38:42 Table Rating, Guaranteed Issue, and Non-Insurance Alternatives
 45:29 Final Thoughts and Closing Takeaways

📅 Join the Weekly Buddy Study Groups

This podcast is an extension of the Buddy Study Groups, a free educational community for financial professionals.

Weekly Calls:

Individual LTCi Study Group: Tuesdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/Il19620844

Group LTCi Study Group: Thursdays at 1 PM PT

Add to Calendar 👉 https://www.addevent.com/event/vs19612672

No membership fee. Just education, collaboration, and better planning strategies.

🔎 About Buddy Study Podcast

The Buddy Study Podcast helps insurance professionals and financial planners master Long-Term Care Insurance through case studies, expert interviews, and carrier product updates. Our goal is to help advisors become more confident, efficient, and knowledgeable when helping clients plan for long-term care.