Association of British Insurers warns on long-term care and health insurance

The Association of British Insurers (ABI) has made a call for local authorities to co-operate through a national framework in their delivery of long-term care, and to clarify the criteria for support. At the moment that is a lack of consistent criteria for assessing care needs, resulting in different decisions on care being made in different places.

The ABI has published research that looks at the sustainability of long-term care from the perspective of insurance companies in the UK, and which proposes setting up a national framework for care assessments by local authorities.

The framework would involve a range of criteria, developed by both local authorities and insurers, which would standardise the decision-making process about who qualifies for care and when insurance providers would have to pay a claim under a long-term care policy.

Nick Kirwan, assistant director of health and protection at the ABI, commented We think that from both a fairness point of view for consumers and a participation point of view for the private sector, we need to be clear with people about when you do and do not qualify for support. A framework that allows the private sector to participate in the provision of long-term care would help to do that.

The coalition government has already initiated an independent commission to examine the affordable and sustainable delivery of long-term care, and is due to offer its views in the next year.