Transamerica LTC Rate Increases: TransCare Filing History & the 2021 Exit

Transamerica stopped selling new standalone individual long-term care insurance — its TransCare II and TransCare III policies — on March 31, 2021. It did not stop servicing the book it had already written, which legacy industry coverage once put at more than 300,000 in-force lives. Those two facts define the position of every remaining TransCare policyholder: you hold coverage from a carrier that has shut the front door on new standalone business but is still actively repricing the policies already on its books. Pennsylvania approved a 30% increase followed by another 17.48% on one TransCare series; Connecticut approved 20% on roughly 8,000 policies.

This piece assembles what is publicly verifiable about Transamerica's standalone LTC rate-action history from state insurance-department records, explains why a block closed to new sales behaves the way it does, and separates the discontinued standalone product from the newer life-insurance LTC rider that shares the Transamerica name. For the contrast of a carrier that is still writing new standalone-adjacent business, compare our analysis of Mutual of Omaha's active posture; for a closed top-five block, see our John Hancock file. Transamerica sits between the two.

Carrier status — closed to new standalone sales, still in force

Transamerica discontinued new individual standalone long-term care insurance effective March 31, 2021, ending sales of TransCare II and TransCare III. Acceptance of applications under approved multi-life arrangements (worksite and association cases) continued only through June 30, 2021. Existing standalone policies were explicitly not affected — they remain in force and are serviced normally — but agents who sold the product had their agreements converted to "servicing-only," and coverage upgrades were closed off unless a policy contractually required them.

"Discontinued" is not the same as "gone." The TransCare block is still on Transamerica's books and still subject to in-force rate filings. The only long-term care product Transamerica markets to individuals today is a fundamentally different instrument: a Long Term Care Rider on its universal life insurance, introduced on November 27, 2023. That is life insurance with an accelerated benefit, not the standalone TransCare coverage these filings concern, and it carries its own underwriting and cost structure.

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.

The state filing record

There is no single national "Transamerica rate increase" figure, because LTC rate increases are filed and approved state by state, policy form by policy form. What any individual TransCare 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. Two documented actions:

State	Year	Requested	Approved	Notes
Pennsylvania	2022	52.72%	30%, then 17.48%	Policy series ICC10 TLC-3; ~259 policyholders affected; second increase implemented no sooner than one year after the first; effective for renewals on/after Aug. 10, 2022
Connecticut	2021	20%	20%	Filed on ~8,000 policies; approved by the Connecticut Insurance Department with no changes

Three things in this record matter more than the headline percentages. First, the Pennsylvania gap between requested and approved — 52.72% asked, 30% granted in the first step — 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, Pennsylvania's structure is a phased increase — 30% in the first step and 17.48% no sooner than a year later — so the cumulative effect of roughly 52% reaches the policyholder in stages, not all at once. (Compounded, a 30% increase followed by 17.48% is about a 52.7% total, which is why the phased halves reconcile to the original request.) Third, Connecticut's clean 20%-requested, 20%-approved outcome shows the other end of the range: a smaller, fully granted increase on a larger pool of policies.

If you hold a TransCare 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 Transamerica carrier file tracks the company's sales status 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 takeaways for an in-force TransCare policyholder are these:

1. Expect further increases, filed state by state. Transamerica's own policy disclosures state that future rate filings are anticipated, based on experience with policies of a similar type. A closed standalone block does not stop filing; the realistic planning assumption is recurring increases, sometimes phased across renewal years like the Pennsylvania action.
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, Transamerica 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 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 does not mean financially weak. A run-off posture on the standalone line is a strategic and accounting state, not a solvency verdict. Transamerica remains a large, established insurer still writing other lines. The thing to manage is the premium trajectory on your TransCare contract, not a fear that the policy will vanish.

Model a Transamerica rate increase in the calculator →

What this is not

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

It is also not a carrier ranking. That Transamerica's documented TransCare increases land in a different band than John Hancock's closed top-five averages 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.

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, and John Hancock 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.