Every year, the long-term care insurance business gathers together to discuss long-term care insurance and long-term care financing. This years meeting was held in Colorado Springs and just concluded.

Despite the fact that new business sales declined in 2014, there were over 1,000 attendees at the meeting -  a record number. Who are these people?  Below is a listing of some of the groups that attended and why they came:

1. Carriers no longer selling new business. Even though new premium sales have declined, the amount of in-force long-term care insurance has increased each year.  In fact, current LTC premium is well over $10 billion annually - making this a big business to manage.
2. Also, Insurers who have been on the sidelines think it might be a great time to get into the market.  Since actuarial assumptions are very conservative, there is a good opportunity for profits on newer products.
3. State regulators  like to learn about the rational for rate increases.  Because states foot so much of the nations long-term care costs through Medicaid, they would love to see a thriving LTC insurance marketplace that can take some of the burden of paying for care off the taxpayers.
4. Home Health Care organizations see long-term care insurance as vital to their growth and success.  Having clients with long-term care benefits means these organizations will get a steady stream of money that can help them hire quality home care workers and improve services.
5. Life Insurers who offer linked products and riders want to network with pricing and product consultants to see how they can improve products and sales.
6. Technology vendors participate to make offer e-application services and other tools that can be used by carriers and distributors.

The ability for all types of stakeholders to network makes this a unique insurance conference.  With products like this being launched, there was plenty of optimism to go around.

If you missed it, you can still go to the conference website at www.iltciconf.org and view all of the session presentations.