MassMutual LTC Rate Increases: The CareChoice Exit & Closed-Block Filing Record

MassMutual stopped selling new standalone individual long-term care insurance nationwide in January 2021, and handed day-to-day administration of the policies it had already written to a third-party administrator, LifeCare Assurance Company. It did not stop repricing that book. Pennsylvania regulators approved an average 38.7% increase on a MassMutual LTC block in 2022; New York approved 37.5% a year for four consecutive years beginning in 2024 — a schedule that compounds to roughly 257% over its run. Those facts define the position of every remaining MassMutual policyholder: you hold coverage from a carrier that closed the front door on new standalone business, outsourced the servicing, and is still filing increases on the contracts it kept.

This piece assembles what is publicly verifiable about MassMutual's standalone LTC rate-action history from state insurance-department records and industry filings, explains why a closed block behaves the way it does, and separates the discontinued standalone product from the CareChoice hybrid life/LTC policy MassMutual still markets today. For a carrier that took the same 2021-exit path, compare our Transamerica TransCare file; for a closed top-five block, see our John Hancock analysis. MassMutual belongs in that closed-block company.

Carrier status — closed to new standalone sales, serviced by a third party

MassMutual discontinued standalone individual long-term care insurance in January 2021. Existing policies were not cancelled — they remain in force — but the company exited the new-sales market and moved administration of the closed block to LifeCare Assurance Company, a firm that specializes in servicing run-off LTC blocks for insurers that have left the line. If your premium notices, claim forms, or benefit correspondence now carry an administrator's name rather than MassMutual's own service desk, that is why.

"Discontinued" is not the same as "gone." The block is still on the books of Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company (a policyholder-owned mutual, NAIC company code 65935) and still subject to in-force rate filings. The only long-term care products MassMutual sells to individuals today are fundamentally different instruments: CareChoice One and CareChoice Select, whole-life policies with long-term care riders. That is life insurance with an accelerated LTC benefit, not the standalone coverage these filings concern — a distinct decision with its own underwriting and cost structure that belongs in a hybrid-versus-traditional comparison, not a rate-history piece.

The structural consequence of a closed standalone block is the same one that drives Genworth's multi-decade repricing program: when little or no new standalone premium is arriving, the burden of correcting decades of optimistic 1990s and 2000s pricing assumptions — policyholders living longer, lapsing less, and claiming more than the original models projected — falls on the people who already hold the coverage. A rate-increase filing is that actuarial gap, passed through to the in-force book. Outsourcing the servicing to LifeCare Assurance changes who answers the phone; it does not change the filing math.

The state filing record

There is no single national "MassMutual rate increase" figure, because LTC rate increases are filed and approved state by state, policy form by policy form. What any individual policyholder pays turns on their state of issue, their specific policy series, and the cumulative increases already applied to that form. The states that publish filing detail give the clearest window. Three documented actions frame the range:

State	Year	Requested	Approved	Notes
Pennsylvania	2022	35.8% avg	38.7% avg (range 3.2%–95.3%)	~4,964 policyholders; phased over 3 years; effective for renewals on/after Oct. 14, 2022; SERFF #MILL-132937942
New York	2024	37.5%/yr	37.5%/yr × 4 years	~257% cumulative; reported example: $3,181 annual premium in 2024 rising above $11,000 by 2028
National (historical)	2018	77% avg	—	Request affecting ~54,000 policyholders of an in-force book then near ~72,000 lives

Three things in this record matter more than any single headline percentage. First, the Pennsylvania range — increases from 3.2% to 95.3% inside one approved filing, averaging 38.7% — is the real story, not the average. A blended state number tells almost no individual policyholder what they will actually pay; the outcome depends on which policy form and benefit design you hold. That spread is precisely why filing-by-filing tracking is worth the effort. Second, New York's structure is the more punishing pattern: not a one-time increase but 37.5% stacked annually for four straight years. Compounded, four 37.5% increases multiply the premium by about 3.6× — the reason a reported $3,181 premium in 2024 climbs past $11,000 by 2028. Third, the 2018 national request for an average 77% across roughly 54,000 policyholders shows this is not a recent development: MassMutual's block has been under repricing pressure for the better part of a decade.

If you hold a MassMutual LTC 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 MassMutual carrier file tracks the company's sales status, complaint record, and filing detail as it is compiled, and our Rate Tracker places it alongside the other carriers.

What a closed standalone block means for your policy

Strip away the carrier name and the third-party administrator, and the takeaways for an in-force MassMutual policyholder are these:

1. Expect further increases, filed state by state. A closed block does not stop filing — the New York schedule alone runs increases through 2027–2028. The realistic planning assumption is recurring increases, sometimes phased across renewal years like the Pennsylvania action, not a single one-and-done adjustment.
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, MassMutual must offer you contingent nonforfeiture — a paid-up benefit equal to the premiums you have already paid. On a New York policy running 37.5% a year, those thresholds are crossed quickly, and this 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 funded 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, outsourced servicing does not mean financially weak. Massachusetts Mutual Life is a large, established mutual insurer still writing life and annuity business; run-off on the standalone LTC line is a strategic and accounting posture, not a solvency verdict. The thing to manage is the premium trajectory on your specific contract — not a fear that the coverage will vanish.

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What this is not

This is not a buyer's review. MassMutual no longer sells the standalone product these filings concern, so there is nothing here to "shop." Its current CareChoice hybrid policies are a separate decision with their own underwriting, costs, and trade-offs — worth evaluating on their merits, but not by reading a closed-block rate history into them.

It is also not a carrier ranking. That MassMutual's documented increases land in a different band than Mutual of Omaha's active-carrier posture is a description of two different books, not a quality judgment — a policyholder cannot change which carrier and which form issued their contract. The filing record is one input for deciding what to do with the policy you already hold, alongside the fuller picture in our analysis of what carrier exits mean for existing policyholders.

Coverage scope

This is the latest carrier-trajectory release in the Long Term Care Desk's Rate Tracker series, joining the Genworth, Mutual of Omaha, John Hancock, and Transamerica 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 July 2026 and will be expanded as additional state actions are confirmed.