Supply or demand

Jeffrey R. Brown

"Long-term care represents one of the largest uninsured financial risks facing the elderly in the United States. Whether the small size of this market is driven primarily by supply side market imperfections or by limitations to demand, however, is unresolved, largely due to the paucity of data about the structure of the private market. We provide what is to our knowledge the first empirical evidence on the pricing and benefit structure of long-term care insurance policies. We estimate that the typical policy purchased by a 65-year old has an average pricing load of about 18 percent and has a very limited benefit structure, covering only one-third of the expected present discounted value of long-term care expenditures. These findings are consistent with the presence of supply side market imperfections. However, we also find enormous gender differences in pricing -- typical loads...