Lowell Serfling bought long-term care insurance a dozen years ago at his dying wife’s suggestion and paid $150 a month for it – until earlier this year. That’s when State Farm informed him that his premium would jump to an extra $60.
“I am on a fixed income and cannot afford this large increase,” Serfling said at the time. So he dropped the policy, giving up more than $20,000 in premiums he’d paid the company. He now hopes a debilitating illness that took his late wife’s life doesn’t strike him, too.
“That’s ugly,” the Sherwood resident said of the rate increase. “People before they buy it need to be made aware the company can do that.”