LAKEVILLE, CT — As many of you know, Brighthouse Financial was spun off largely from MetLife in 2017 and “launched” with new branding in 2018. Brighthouse specializes in annuity and life insurance products and due to their mass ($217 billion of assets)instantly became a player in the insurance financial services sector.

Of note in 2019 are the considerable resources they are devoting to promote hybrid long-term care insurance. https://www.brighthousefinancial.com/education/healthcare-planning-for-retirement/benefits-of-life-insurance-with-long-term-care/

Their product is called SmartCare and like all hybrid products contains a mix of life insurance and long-term care insurance. Though potentially risky for the consumer, they are also uniquely providing options pertaining to the long-term care insurance inflation options. Un like competitors they are providing an non-guaranteed investment option tied to the vagaries of the stock market. And though this can be a “good” thing, it can also be “bad” if care is needed in. a down market or recession and the growth has stalled or gone negative.

Not dissimilar from the MassMutual product, SmartCare seems to be equally weighted between life insurance and long-term care from a benefit perspective. This can be appealing to younger customers with a meaningful life insurance need, but is generally ill-suited to my traditional client base that care’s not for additional life insurance. The purpose of life insurance in most Hybrid product’s is simply to return premium paid to beneficiaries at death if the insured does not need long-term care.

Regardless of how Hybrids are configured, what is noteworthy with Brighthouse is that they recognize the explosive growth of these programs, and have elected to lead their advertising and branding efforts behind this form of insurance. With all the traditional life insurance choices available to consumers, they realize the import of bundling long-term care benefits with life insurance. Statistically in 2018 more people purchased Hybrid oriented programs than traditional long-term care insurance. This is truly noteworthy.

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Craig Davis, President, RetirementGuard
Craig Davis
www.hybrid-ltc.com