John Hancock LTC Rate Increases: Filing History & the Closed-Block Reality

John Hancock has not sold a new standalone long-term care insurance policy since December 2, 2016. It is also, by in-force premium, one of the five largest standalone LTC carriers in the country. Those two facts together define the experience of every John Hancock policyholder: you are holding coverage from a carrier that has no new-business premium coming in, an aging book it must keep solvent, and a documented, ongoing program of in-force rate increases — Maryland approved a 29.9% average increase on one John Hancock series in 2025; North Carolina policyholders have been told to expect roughly 25% per year for several years running.

This piece assembles what is publicly verifiable about John Hancock's rate-action history from state insurance-department filings, explains why a closed top-five block behaves the way it does, and connects it to the one federal program — the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program — that John Hancock still underwrites and that is now closed to new enrollees through at least the end of 2026. For the parallel case of a carrier that is still writing new business, compare our analysis of Mutual of Omaha's active-carrier posture; the contrast is the whole point.

Carrier status — closed to new business, still very much in force

John Hancock, a subsidiary of Canada's Manulife Financial, discontinued new standalone individual long-term care insurance effective December 2, 2016, with a final issue and payment deadline of February 10, 2017. The only LTC-related product it still markets to individuals is a hybrid — LifeCare, an indexed universal life policy with a long-term care benefit — which is a fundamentally different instrument from the traditional standalone policies that make up its in-force block.

"Closed" does not mean gone. John Hancock continues to service hundreds of thousands of in-force traditional policies and remains, per 2024 NAIC Long-Term Care Experience Reporting data analyzed by Milliman, among the top five carriers by standalone LTC in-force premium. For context, the entire U.S. standalone LTC market covered roughly 5.8 million people at year-end 2024 — a shrinking population that almost no one is allowed to join, because nearly every major writer has exited new sales. John Hancock's own legacy disclosures referenced more than 1.2 million in-force policies as far back as 2011; the company does not publicly break out a current figure at the LTC line.

The structural consequence is the same one that drives Genworth's multi-decade repricing program: when no new premium is arriving, the entire burden of correcting decades of mispriced assumptions — people living longer, lapsing less, and claiming more than 1990s and 2000s pricing models assumed — falls on the existing policyholders. That is what a rate-increase filing is: the actuarial gap, passed through.

The state filing record

There is no single national "John Hancock rate increase" number, because LTC rate increases are filed and approved state by state, policy form by policy form. What any individual policyholder pays depends on their state of issue, their specific policy series, and the cumulative-increase history already applied to that form. State insurance departments that publish filing detail give the clearest window. Three representative actions:

State	Year	Requested	Approved	Notes
Maryland	2025	41.8% avg (39.4%–55.5% range)	29.9% avg	Custom Care III series; part of a triennial comprehensive experience study; capped at 15% per year
North Carolina	2024	—	~25%	Reported with additional ~25% increases projected annually for at least three more years
New Hampshire	2021–2022	—	Phased	Approved increases capped at the state's 20%-per-year statutory ceiling

Three things in this table matter more than the headline percentages. First, the gap between requested and approved in Maryland — 41.8% asked, 29.9% granted — is the regulator doing its job, and it is the reason filing-by-filing tracking is worth the effort: the sticker request is not the outcome. Second, the per-year caps (15% in the Maryland order, 20% statutory in New Hampshire) mean a large approved increase is often spread across multiple renewal years rather than landing all at once — a 29.9% total may reach a policyholder as, say, 15% this year and the balance next. Third, North Carolina's "25% now, ~25% projected annually for three more years" framing is the closed-block pattern in its rawest form: this is not a one-time correction but a sustained, pre-signaled trajectory.

If you are holding a John Hancock policy, the actionable version of this is on your own paperwork, not in a state average. The series name and form number are printed on your declarations page; the increase that applies to you is the one filed against that specific form in your state. Our John Hancock carrier file tracks the company's complaint index, sales status, and filing detail as it is compiled.

The federal angle: FLTCIP and a market of one

John Hancock's exposure to long-term care extends past its private book. The company is the sole underwriter of the Federal Long Term Care Insurance Program (FLTCIP), the LTC benefit offered to federal employees, retirees, and their families through the Office of Personnel Management. That program tells the industry's story in miniature.

OPM suspended new FLTCIP applications on December 19, 2022, citing "ongoing volatility in long-term care costs and a diminished insurance market." On December 19, 2024, rather than reopening, OPM extended the suspension by another 24 months — through at least December 2026. Existing enrollees keep their coverage but cannot apply for increased coverage, and no new federal employee can join. The starkest signal of the market's condition: when OPM last sought competitive bids to run the program, John Hancock was the only company that submitted one. A government program covering millions of federal workers attracted a single bidder.

FLTCIP enrollees are not insulated from the same repricing pressure as private policyholders, either — the program implemented premium increases reaching as high as 86% for some enrollees in its most recent (FLTCIP 3.0) repricing. The mechanics differ from a private rate filing, but the driver is identical: long-term care turned out to cost far more than the original pricing assumed, and there is no new money to absorb it.

What a top-five closed block means for your policy

Strip away the carrier name and the takeaways for an in-force John Hancock policyholder are these:

1. Expect continued increases, filed in waves. A closed block with John Hancock's scale does not stop filing. The realistic planning assumption is recurring increases in the 15%–30% band, often phased over multiple years by state caps — not a single increase followed by stability.
2. Your options when the letter arrives are standardized. However large the increase, the menu inside a rate-hike letter is the same five-choice structure for every carrier. Read the five options inside a rate-hike letter before you respond to the deadline, not after.
3. Contingent nonforfeiture may already be on the table. If a cumulative increase crosses the trigger thresholds in NAIC Model Regulation §28, John Hancock must offer you contingent nonforfeiture — a paid-up benefit equal to the premiums you have already paid. It is the single most overlooked option on these letters.
4. "Drop it" is a real option, but rarely the right reflex. Walking away from a policy you have paid into for fifteen or twenty years forfeits an enormous sunk benefit. The math is specific to your situation — our framework on whether to drop an LTC policy walks through when surrender, reduction, or nonforfeiture beats simply paying the increase.
5. Closed-block does not mean financially weak. A run-off posture is an accounting and strategic state, not a solvency verdict. John Hancock/Manulife remains a large, highly rated insurer. The thing to manage is the premium trajectory, not a fear that the policy will vanish.

Model a John Hancock rate increase in the calculator →

What this is not

This is not a buyer's review. John Hancock no longer sells the standalone product these filings concern, so there is nothing here to "shop." Its current LifeCare hybrid is a separate decision with its own underwriting, costs, and trade-offs that belong in a hybrid-versus-traditional analysis, not a rate-history piece.

It is also not a carrier ranking. That John Hancock's closed-block increases run larger than Mutual of Omaha's active-carrier averages is a structural description, not a quality judgment — a closed top-five block and an active mid-market writer are simply different animals, and a policyholder cannot change which one issued their contract. The filing record is one input for deciding what to do with the policy you already hold.

Coverage scope

This is the latest carrier-trajectory release in the Long Term Care Desk's Rate Tracker series, joining the Genworth and Mutual of Omaha files. State-by-state filing detail is compiled in each carrier's carrier file on a rolling basis; the figures here reflect the filings located as of June 2026 and will be expanded as additional state actions are confirmed.