FLTCIP Premium Increases: 2010, 2016, 2024 and What Comes Next

Every FLTCIP premium change, with date, average and source

OPM and the program site name three rate actions for existing enrollees: 2010, 2016 and 2024. Only the middle one comes with an official average. The table below puts all of them in one place, with the second and third phases of the 2024 action on their own rows because they are the dates a current enrollee actually saw a bill change.

Sources: OPM statement of John O’Brien to the House Oversight Committee, November 30, 2016; OPM Benefits Administration Letters 16-901 (July 18, 2016) and 23-902 (September 11, 2023); LTCFEDS.gov frequently asked questions; Federal News Network, “Federal long term care insurance premiums to increase by as much as 86%, data shows” (September 2023), a news report and not an OPM document. The FAQ’s history table lists the years 2010, 2016 and 2024 and which plan series each hit: FLTCIP 1.0 in 2010; FLTCIP 1.0 and 2.0 in 2016; FLTCIP 1.0, 2.0 and the Alternative Insurance Plan in 2024.

One example of what the 2024 action looked like on a bill: an enrollee who joined at 24 told Federal News Network his premium would go from $76.27 to $141.90 a month by 2026, a rise of about 86% (our arithmetic from the two figures). That is one letter, not a program average.

A worked example of stacking (our arithmetic, illustrative). An enrollee paying $100 a month before November 2016 who kept the same coverage would have faced the 2016 average, 83%, and paid $183. If a later rise were 50% (a placeholder, not an OPM figure; the program published no 2024 average), the premium would be $274.50, which is 174.5% above the starting $100. Increases multiply, they do not add. The actual figure on any one policy is on the schedule of benefits the carrier sends.

Will the premium rise again? What the documents say

Three documents bear on the question, and they point different ways.

The statute limits changes inside a contract term. 5 U.S.C. 9003 says premiums “shall not be adjusted during the term of the contract unless mutually agreed to by the Office and the carrier”. Each master contract runs seven years. The 2016 contract began May 1, 2016, and the extension described in BAL 23-902 began May 1, 2023; the LTCFEDS FAQ gives the current term as May 1, 2023 through April 30, 2030. Both past large actions landed when a contract began or was renewed: the 2016 increase took effect November 1, 2016, six months after the new term, and the 2024 increase eight months after the 2023 start (our arithmetic from the dates above).

The program says premiums are not guaranteed. The LTCFEDS FAQ says that “FLTCIP premiums are not guaranteed” and that “Your premium will not change because you get older or your health changes or for any other reason related solely to you.” Premiums may only increase if the enrollee is among a group whose premium is “determined to be inadequate”. The same site says enrollees “are not subject to a rate increase while they are eligible for benefits”.

The Inspector General saw a deficit before the last increase. OPM’s Office of the Inspector General (report 1G-LT-00-21-013, September 12, 2022) found the fund had an estimated deficit against what it needed under moderately adverse assumptions and projected it would be depleted by 2048 without a premium increase or benefit decrease; the dollar amount is blacked out in the published report. It wrote that “FLTCIP participants will likely see a large increase in premiums and/or decrease to benefits for the next contract period”, which is what happened in 2024. We found no later funded-status figure in public documents, so we cannot say whether the 2024 action closed the gap.

What we did not find: a Benefits Administration Letter or Federal Register notice announcing a rate action after the 2024 one. OPM’s Long Term Care reference materials page lists BAL 24-901 of November 2024 as its newest letter, and a Federal Register search on November 11, 2026 showed no FLTCIP rate notice. That is a reading of what is published, not a promise. The next natural point for a repricing, if one comes, is the contract that follows April 30, 2030 (our arithmetic), or earlier if OPM and the carrier agree.

What an enrollee was offered, round by round

When an increase lands, OPM runs an Enrollee Decision Period: personalized letters, a deadline and a default. The menus differed in 2016 and 2023.

Sources: OPM Benefits Administration Letters 16-901 and 23-902; OPM statement to the House Oversight Committee, November 30, 2016. The entry saying increases in coverage are not offered rests on the suspension notices: current enrollees may not apply to increase their coverage during the suspension.

A separate premium change that is not a rate increase: FLTCIP 3.0 enrollees with the future purchase option get an offer every two years to raise the daily benefit with the consumer price index, at a premium based on their age and the rates then in force. If they accept, the premium rises with the benefit; if they decline three offers, the program stops making them. The LTCFEDS home page says an accepted 2026 offer took effect January 1, 2026. That step shows up on a bill like an increase but follows from the benefit the enrollee accepted.

The paid-up benefit: the contingent benefit upon lapse

The FLTCIP name for what other insurers call contingent nonforfeiture is the “contingent benefit upon lapse”. The LTCFEDS FAQ describes it as a consumer protection built into FLTCIP coverage, available under certain conditions when a premium increase occurs. It allows the enrollee to stop paying premiums in return for paid-up coverage with reduced benefits. The FAQ states: “Your new Maximum Lifetime Benefit (MLB) will be reduced to the total amount of premiums you have paid for your coverage, or 30 times your daily benefit amount, whichever is greater.” It also says the threshold depends on age and follows the National Association of Insurance Commissioners model regulation. The test is the percent increase over the initial premium.

Source: LTCFEDS.gov FAQ, “Contingent benefit upon lapse thresholds”, which lists every age from 60 to 90 individually (the file has all 37 rows). The ages shown here are a selection.

For the 2024 increase, the FAQ says impacted enrollees “were eligible for a paid-up, limited benefit” and that the benefit would “automatically apply for a certain period of time after the decision period ends”; the letter sent with the updated schedule of benefits gives the window. The FAQ does not state that window, and we have not seen a letter, so we do not state it. Whoever holds a letter should read its dates.

A worked example (our arithmetic, illustrative, not a policy). Take a premium of $100 a month at the start. At age 65 the table’s line is 50%, so $150 a month crosses it; at 60 the line is 70%, so $170 does. On the 2016 average, 83%, the premium would be $183, past both lines but short of the 90% line for ages 55 to 59. Now the benefit: with a daily benefit amount of $150, 30 times it is $4,500. If the enrollee had paid $12,000 in premiums, the reduced Maximum Lifetime Benefit would be $12,000, the greater; if the enrollee had paid only $3,000, it would be $4,500. The FAQ adds that if the enrollee previously received benefits and recovered, “no benefits will be paid in excess of your remaining MLB”. Whether any given enrollee qualified depends on the age at the time of the increase, the plan and the Benefit Booklet, which governs.

The application freeze and the date that matters

OPM’s BAL 22-901 of November 10, 2022 announced a suspension of new applications; the Federal Register notice followed on November 18, 2022 (87 FR 69345); and the suspension began on December 19, 2022 for 24 months. On November 13, 2024 OPM published a notice (89 FR 89662) extending it for 24 months from December 19, 2024. Its stated reason: “ongoing volatility in long term care costs and a diminished insurance market” that undermine setting premium rates that “reasonably and equitably reflect the cost of the benefits provided”.

Rule: 5 CFR 875.110(d) says “At least 30 days before the end of the suspension period, OPM may issue a document in the Federal Register announcing an extension of the suspension period”. Each extension is capped at 24 months. When we searched on November 11, 2026 we found no such notice; the date could change after we publish.

For a current enrollee the freeze means two things: nobody new is joining the risk pool, and current enrollees cannot apply to raise coverage. OPM says the enrollment status and benefit eligibility of current enrollees do not change, and that claims reimbursement continues unchanged. It also notes that the program “is not part of the annual Federal Benefit Open Season”, so there is no November window to revisit the coverage.

Enrollment over time

OPM and the program give counts at different dates and on different bases, so this is a collection of data points, not a series.

Sources as listed. Before the suspension the program was adding about 6,000 new enrollees a year, less than 0.1% of the 11 million eligible, according to Federal News Network. The 2002 and 2011 rows are open-season counts, not totals, so they are not comparable with the later rows.

Read it this way (our arithmetic): the totals from 2016 to 2026 sit in a narrow band, about 274,000 to something above 260,000, even though the program stopped admitting new enrollees on December 19, 2022. With no new members the pool can only age, which is our reading and not a statement from OPM. The program’s “Why premium increases are needed” page lists claims experience, lapse rates and mortality among the factors it weighs, and notes that when an enrollee lapses, “the premiums paid by that enrollee remain with the program”.

FLTCIP and Genworth side by side

Our page on Genworth long-term care rate increases and settlements shows how a private insurer’s block gets repriced: state by state, year after year. The federal program does it differently.

Sources: LTCFEDS.gov FAQ (“Do the states have any role in regulating the FLTCIP?”) and About page; OPM statement of November 30, 2016; the Genworth figures are those on our Genworth page, taken from its Form 10-K for 2025 and Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026. The two are not like for like: one is a single federal group plan, the other a private block sold policy by policy.

What a reader can do with this

1. Read the paper you already have. The Benefit Booklet, the schedule of benefits and the Enrollee Decision Period letters state your plan series (1.0, 2.0, AIP or 3.0), what the increase was, and the dates for any paid-up window. This page’s thresholds are the program’s general table; the booklet governs.
2. Check which plan you hold. FLTCIP 3.0 was not in the 2024 increase; 1.0, 2.0 and the Alternative Insurance Plan were. The history table above shows which series each past increase hit.
3. Put the premium next to the benefit in numbers. The reduced-benefit options in 2016 and 2023 cut components such as the inflation rate; the Federal News Network example showed one enrollee’s automatic compound inflation option falling from 4% to 1.88% to hold the premium. What a cut does to a daily benefit decades from now is arithmetic you can do with your own schedule.
4. Know the tax side before you change anything. FLTCIP coverage must be under qualified long-term care insurance contracts (5 U.S.C. 9002), and the federal deduction for qualified premiums has age-based limits; see our long-term care premium deduction page. Our page on hybrid long-term care and 1035 exchanges covers other structures, and FLTCIP is closed to new applicants, so a different product is not a like-for-like swap.
5. Watch two dates. November 19, 2026 (the last day for a further suspension notice) and December 19, 2026. Those affect new buyers and increases in coverage, not an existing enrollee’s premium. The sources do not tie any rate action to them.

More for federal retirees, read from the same kind of primary documents: the 2027 FERS and CSRS COLA by retirement month, FEHB and PSHB 2027 premiums, plan by plan, FEGLI Option B premiums after 65, the FERS supplement's 2027 earnings limit, OPM's retirement backlog, month by month, keeping the TSP or rolling it to an IRA and the TSP L Funds' allocations and glide paths.

FAQ

Sources: OPM Benefits Administration Letters 16-901 (July 18, 2016), 22-901 (November 10, 2022), 23-902 (September 11, 2023) and 24-901 (November 13, 2024); statement of John O’Brien, OPM, to the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, November 30, 2016; Federal Register notices 87 FR 69345 (November 18, 2022) and 89 FR 89662 (November 13, 2024); 5 CFR 875.110 (eCFR, current through November 9, 2026); 5 U.S.C. chapter 90 as posted on OPM’s Long Term Care page; LTCFEDS.gov (FAQs, About, FLTCIP Oversight, Why Premium Increases are Needed, home page); OPM Office of the Inspector General report 1G-LT-00-21-013 (September 12, 2022); Federal News Network, September 2023 and November 2024 (secondary). Where a figure is marked secondary it comes from a news report and not from an OPM document. All pages read on November 11, 2026.