Marketing long-term care insurance. Public education ads to the proper target must precede sales efforts

The ingredients for a financial calamity affecting both government and individual citizens and their families are in place. Federal legislators have made little progress in addressing the health care needs of an aging America, and the proposals that have been advanced offer little or nothing in the way of better help with long-term care. One potential scenario is that middle-income retirees placed in long-term care will exhaust their finances and then turn to Medicaid, creating an enormous expense for the government. Long-term care insurance could alleviate the situation, but current practices by the insurance industry in marketing products to the elderly complicate the sale of such insurance. Consumers approaching retirement age are receptive to this type of product, but first they must be made aware of the merits of long-term care insurance and the paucity of alternatives. Only then can marketers promote specific products successfully.