If you typed "Brighthouse Long-Term Protection" into a search bar, you were probably holding a premium notice or a policy schedule and trying to figure out one thing: who do I call, and is this coverage still real? Here is the answer that no carrier page states plainly. Brighthouse Financial does not sell — and never sold — a product called "Long-Term Protection." The phrase is a memory, not a policy name. It survives because three genuinely different insurance situations have been quietly stuffed under one label, and each one has a different company standing behind it and a different phone number that actually pays claims.
Sorting out which of the three you hold takes about sixty seconds and one document. This post is that sort.
Why "Long-Term Protection" isn't printed on any policy
"Long-Term protection" is descriptive marketing language — the category of what long-term care coverage is for — not a product Brighthouse ever branded. Two histories collided to make people believe otherwise. First, Brighthouse was spun out of MetLife in 2017, so millions of policyholders whose paperwork says "MetLife" now see the Brighthouse name and assume the two are interchangeable. They aren't. Second, Brighthouse's actual long-term care product is called SmartCare — a hybrid life-insurance-plus-LTC policy — and its marketing leans heavily on "long-term protection" as a phrase. Type the phrase, and a search engine cheerfully points you at Brighthouse. That does not mean Brighthouse is the company that owes you a benefit.
Whether it does depends entirely on which of the following three policies is sitting in your filing cabinet.
The three policies people actually mean
1. A legacy MetLife individual long-term care policy
MetLife stopped selling individual long-term care insurance in 2010 — seven years before the Brighthouse spin-off. When MetLife carved out its retail life and annuity business to create Brighthouse in 2017, it kept its long-term care blocks. If you bought a standalone LTC policy from a MetLife agent in, say, 2004, that policy stayed with MetLife. Brighthouse never administered it and does not pay its claims. The Brighthouse name showing up in your searches is a red herring. We walk through exactly who holds these policies now, and the number to call, in what happened to your MetLife long-term care policy.
2. A Brighthouse SmartCare hybrid
SmartCare is Brighthouse's indexed universal life policy with long-term care riders, launched in February 2019 and enhanced in July 2024. It is a hybrid: if you never need care, it pays a death benefit to your heirs instead of expiring worthless. If you signed your application in 2019 or later and the product name on it is "SmartCare," this is what you have — and Brighthouse is unambiguously the company that services it. The mechanics, the cost-of-insurance catch, and what the 2025 financial-strength downgrades mean are covered in Brighthouse SmartCare, explained.
3. A Brighthouse-administered individual long-term care policy
This is the group that "Long-Term Protection" searchers most often belong to and least often realize. Brighthouse administers a block of individual long-term care policies — separate from SmartCare, separate from MetLife's retained book — and it publishes its own dedicated long-term care claims and servicing lines for them. If your premium notices arrive from Brighthouse Financial and your declarations page names a Brighthouse company as the issuer, this is you. Your claim is Brighthouse's to pay.
The label on the search bar tells you nothing. The issuing company on your declarations page tells you everything.
How to tell which one you hold in 60 seconds
Don't guess from the brand you half-remember. Pull the policy's declarations page (also called the policy schedule or specifications page — usually page one or two of the contract) and read the line that names the issuing insurance company. Then cross-check who sends your premium bills. That single line resolves the routing:
| If your documents name… | You hold… | Who pays the claim |
|---|---|---|
| Metropolitan Life Insurance Co. (MetLife) | A legacy MetLife individual LTC policy | MetLife's LTC claims unit |
| Brighthouse + product name "SmartCare" | A SmartCare hybrid (life + LTC) | Brighthouse SmartCare claims |
| Brighthouse (individual LTC, no "SmartCare") | A Brighthouse-administered individual LTC policy | Brighthouse individual LTC claims |
If the issuer line says anything other than MetLife or Brighthouse — Genworth, John Hancock, Transamerica, Mutual of Omaha — you are in a different carrier's book entirely, and the "Brighthouse" in your search was pure coincidence. The Brighthouse carrier file tracks the sales status and filings for the Brighthouse side specifically.
The claims routing that actually matters
For a Brighthouse-administered individual long-term care policy, Brighthouse publishes a dedicated individual LTC claims line — (877) 582-7767 — and a separate individual LTC servicing line, (888) 507-9185, for premium and beneficiary questions. SmartCare claims run through Brighthouse's SmartCare long-term care claims process, which begins by requesting a claims packet rather than filing over the phone. One caution worth more than any number in this post: closed-block servicing lines get reassigned as administrators change, so verify the number printed on your own most recent statement or on the official Brighthouse support page before you rely on it. A wrong number costs you a week; the right number is always the one on your paper.
Once you reach the correct desk, the process itself is the same regardless of carrier: a 90-day elimination period you fund out of pocket, activity-of-daily-living certification with specific document mechanics, and a short list of predictable denial reasons. That machinery — and where claims actually get rejected — is laid out in how LTC insurance claims actually get paid.
Does the Aquarian sale change any of this?
No. Brighthouse Financial agreed in November 2025 to be acquired by private-equity-backed Aquarian Holdings in an all-cash deal valued at roughly $4.1 billion, expected to close in 2026 pending regulatory approval. An ownership change at the holding-company level does not rewrite your contract, reset your benefit triggers, or move your policy to a new insurer. Your servicer, your claims line, and your guaranteed benefits are contractual and survive the sale — and if a carrier ever became insolvent, your state guaranty association is the backstop, not the buyer. We unpack what the deal does and does not touch in Brighthouse is being sold to Aquarian. If you're weighing whether a rate-hike letter or the sale is a reason to change anything, start with the five options a rate-hike letter actually gives you — not a phone tree.
Frequently asked
Is "Brighthouse Long-Term Protection" the same as SmartCare?
Not exactly. SmartCare is a real, named Brighthouse product (a life-plus-LTC hybrid). "Long-Term Protection" is descriptive language, not a product — people searching it hold SmartCare, a Brighthouse-administered individual LTC policy, or a legacy MetLife policy. Check your declarations page for the actual product name.
I have a MetLife LTC policy — do I call Brighthouse?
No. MetLife retained its long-term care blocks when it spun off Brighthouse in 2017. A MetLife-issued policy is serviced by MetLife, not Brighthouse, even though the two companies share a history.
My Brighthouse LTC claim keeps getting rejected — is it the wrong number?
Often it's the wrong desk, not the wrong company: SmartCare and individual LTC policies use different claims paths at Brighthouse. Confirm the product name on your policy, then use the line for that specific product — and verify it against your latest statement, since servicing numbers change.
Will my claims contact change after the Aquarian acquisition?
Not as a result of the deal itself. Ownership changes don't move policies or reset servicing. If a servicing number ever changes, the authoritative source is the notice Brighthouse mails you and the number on your current statement.
Do this now: pull your policy's declarations page and read the issuing-company line. That one sentence — not the brand you typed into a search bar — decides who owes you a benefit and which number pays it.
Sources
- Brighthouse Financial — customer support and long-term care claims contacts, brighthousefinancial.com/support.
- Brighthouse Financial — SmartCare product disclosures and long-term care claims process (launched February 2019; enhancements announced July 2024).
- MetLife — exit from individual long-term care sales (2010) and 2017 spin-off of Brighthouse Financial.
- Brighthouse Financial / Aquarian Holdings — acquisition agreement announced November 2025 (~$4.1B all-cash), expected to close in 2026 pending regulatory approval.