Genworth Launches New LTC Insurance Product: What Care Assurance Means for Retirees (2026)

Last updated: April 2026  |  By AnnuityJournal Editorial Team

Genworth Financial is shifting gears. The Virginia-based insurer, once the largest U.S. provider of standalone long-term care insurance (LTCi), has spent most of the past decade defending itself from lawsuits, regulatory actions, and policyholder anger over massive rate increases on its legacy LTC policies. In October 2025, Genworth made its boldest move yet: launching a new LTC product called Care Assurance that it says will avoid the pricing mistakes of the past.

For retirees weighing long-term care coverage options, the Care Assurance launch matters in two ways. First, it is one of the few new LTCi products to enter the market in years, at a time when most major carriers have exited standalone LTCi entirely. Second, it signals how the entire insurance industry is rethinking long-term care funding, which has direct implications for how annuity buyers should plan for future care needs.

What Is Care Assurance LTC?

Care Assurance is Genworth’s new standalone long-term care insurance product, designed from the ground up with more conservative pricing assumptions than the company’s legacy policies. It launched in October 2025 and is currently available in 40 states, with 4 additional states expected to receive regulatory approval in the first half of 2026.

The key design principles behind Care Assurance:

• Conservative pricing. Genworth priced the product assuming higher-than-historical claims frequency and longer-than-historical benefit periods. The goal is to eliminate the rate-increase cycle that plagued its earlier policies, where premiums sometimes doubled or tripled over 15 to 20 years.
• Predictable benefits. The policy uses a clearer benefit structure with defined daily or monthly benefit amounts rather than variable features that could be reinterpreted over time.
• Inflation protection options. Buyers can elect inflation riders to grow the benefit amount over time, which is particularly important because the cost of long-term care has historically outpaced overall inflation.
• Underwriting discipline. Care Assurance has tighter medical underwriting than legacy policies, which reduces the pool of eligible buyers but also limits claims risk.

The trade-off is that Care Assurance premiums are higher at issue than Genworth’s older products were when they first launched. Buyers are effectively paying more upfront in exchange for greater confidence that the premium will remain stable over time. For retirees who watched their parents or neighbors face 50% to 100% rate increases on 20-year-old LTC policies, that trade-off is often worth it.

Why Genworth Is Re-entering LTC

Genworth’s financial results explain both the struggle and the opportunity. In its Q4 2025 earnings call, CEO Tom McInerney outlined a challenging but resilient financial picture. The company’s legacy long-term care segment posted an operational loss of approximately $317 million, reflecting continued claims pressure on policies sold in the 1990s and 2000s. Those older policies were priced assuming claims frequency and severity that turned out to be dramatically understated, which is why premiums have climbed and losses have mounted.

At the same time, Genworth’s private mortgage insurance subsidiary Enact earned $558 million for the full year, providing the parent company with both cash flow and financial stability. The mortgage insurance business is a bright spot that funds Genworth’s continued presence in LTC while the legacy book runs off over the next 20 to 30 years.

Care Assurance is Genworth’s bet that the LTCi market still has demand (tens of millions of Americans will need long-term care in their 70s and 80s) and that a properly priced new product can be profitable where older ones were not. The company also acquired Seniorly in early 2026, a technology platform connecting families with senior living resources. The $15 million acquisition is intended to enhance Genworth’s CareScout services and build a broader long-term care ecosystem around the Care Assurance product.

The Bigger LTC Market Context

The U.S. long-term care insurance market has contracted sharply over the past 15 years. At its peak in the early 2000s, more than 100 insurance carriers sold standalone LTCi. By 2025, that number had dropped below 10. Most carriers exited because they could not make the business profitable under the pricing assumptions they had used, and regulators have generally been unwilling to approve the rate increases necessary to make legacy books solvent.

The contraction created a coverage gap. Today, only about 7.5 million Americans have standalone LTC insurance, out of an estimated 70+ million adults who will need some form of long-term care during their lifetimes. The rest are relying on personal savings, family support, Medicaid (which requires spending down assets to qualify), or hybrid insurance products that combine life insurance or annuities with LTC benefits.

According to industry data from Genworth itself, the median annual cost of long-term care in the United States in 2025 was approximately $61,000 for a private room in a nursing home, $55,000 for a home health aide providing full-time care, and $62,000 for an assisted living facility private room. These costs are projected to grow at 4% to 5% per year, which means a retiree entering care in 2030 or 2035 will face costs substantially higher than today’s figures.

What This Means for Annuity Buyers

For retirees who are already planning to buy annuities as part of their retirement income strategy, Genworth’s Care Assurance launch should trigger a rethink of how long-term care risk fits into the overall plan. Three practical implications.

Standalone LTCi is still a valid option for some buyers. If you are in your 50s or early 60s, in good health, and can afford the higher upfront premium, a properly priced new policy like Care Assurance is worth evaluating alongside other options. It is one of the few standalone LTCi products that has been specifically engineered to avoid the rate-increase cycle that made older policies so expensive in hindsight.

Hybrid LTC annuities remain the alternative most retirees choose. A hybrid LTC annuity combines a traditional annuity (usually a single premium deferred annuity) with an LTC benefit rider. If you need long-term care, the annuity pays out accelerated benefits that can cover a portion of care costs. If you never need care, the annuity functions as a regular deferred annuity and passes to your heirs at death. Hybrid products are sold by carriers like Lincoln Financial, OneAmerica, and Pacific Life, and they often appeal to buyers who want the dual functionality without paying premiums into a pure insurance product.

LTC riders on existing annuities are a middle option. Many deferred annuities now offer optional LTC riders that double the withdrawal amount if you meet activities-of-daily-living (ADL) thresholds. These riders are cheaper than standalone LTCi and provide meaningful (though not complete) coverage for the cost of home care or assisted living. Ask about LTC rider availability when shopping for a fixed annuity or fixed indexed annuity.

How to Plan LTC Coverage in 2026

For most retirees, the practical answer is a combination of funding sources rather than a single product. A reasonable approach looks like this:

1. Self-fund the first year or two of care from personal savings or a dedicated emergency bucket.
2. Cover the middle years with an annuity or hybrid product that provides structured payouts regardless of whether care is needed.
3. Rely on Medicaid for catastrophic long-duration care in the unlikely event care extends beyond 5 to 7 years, acknowledging that this requires spending down assets to qualify.

A standalone LTCi policy like Care Assurance can replace or supplement step 2 for buyers who want dedicated insurance coverage. The decision between Care Assurance, a hybrid product, and an LTC rider on an annuity comes down to personal health, premium budget, and how much of the LTC risk you want to transfer versus retain.

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