Genworth Long-Term Care Rate Increases: 28% Average Approved in 2026 on $339M of Premiums Through September 30

What changed in the Q3 2026 filing

Genworth reports its long-term care rate action plan in one table: how many state filings were approved, how much in-force premium they touch, the weighted-average percentage increase and the extra annual premium that results. The 10-Q gives the nine months and the quarter, and the 10-K gives the last three years.

Sources: Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-071072), Closed Block segment, in-force rate actions table; Form 10-K for 2025 (accession 0001628280-26-012828), filing approvals table. Dollar amounts are Genworth's, in millions.

Three readings, all our arithmetic. First, the table is internally consistent: 28% of $339 million is about $95 million. Second, the plan is shrinking in dollars even as 2026 touches more premium than the first nine months of 2025: impacted premiums are up about 26% ($339 million against $270 million) but incremental premiums are down about 13% ($95 million against $109 million), because the average increase fell from 40% to 28%. Third, gross incremental premiums fell from $354 million in 2023 to $209 million in 2025. The 10-K says approvals in 2025 “were lower than previous years due to past successes in achieving approvals”.

The $95 million is the gross amount approved, not what policyholders end up paying, because of the choice the filing describes: after approval, insureds get written notice, “increases are generally applied on the insured’s next policy anniversary date”, and at that point “policyholders make an election to either pay the full increase or reduce their benefits”. The 10-Q notes that $18 million of higher premiums in the third quarter came from newly implemented rate actions and that this was partly offset by lower renewal premiums from terminations and from earlier benefit reductions.

A worked example (our arithmetic, not a policy). An annual premium of $3,000 with a 28% approved increase becomes $3,840, an extra $840 a year. If a second 28% increase follows, the premium is $4,915 a year, 64% above the starting point. A policyholder who instead accepts a benefit reduction keeps a lower premium but also a smaller policy. The approved percentage differs by state and product and may be phased in over several years, as the 10-Q says.

Genworth also says it will “consider litigation against states that decline to approve those actuarially justified rate increases”, and the 10-K says that at December 31, 2025 it was in litigation with one state over certain products. The filings do not name the state.

The three class settlements over rate-increase disclosures

Between 2019 and 2022 policyholders sued Genworth in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, alleging that it had not told them about the rate increases it planned. Genworth's 10-K says it “previously reached three legal settlements regarding alleged disclosure deficiencies in premium increases” covering “approximately 70%” of its LTC in-force in the Closed Block. The named plaintiffs are private individuals, so we identify the cases by court and number.

Why “our reading” for the first row: the 2023 opinion says the first two cases together included Choice I, PCS I and PCS II policyholders, and the 2022 opinion assigns PCS I and PCS II to No. 3:21-cv-19, which leaves Choice I for No. 3:19-cv-49. We could not retrieve the first case's final-approval opinion, so its option terms are not tabled.

The court in No. 3:22-cv-55 notes that its policies “were not subject to the MYRAP”, the multi-year rate increase action plan, and it describes the earlier cases as involving policies hit by that plan, “leading to cumulative rate increases of 250% or more over a decade”. That figure is the court's description of the earlier litigation, not a Genworth statistic for any one policy. In the last case, at least 352,168 class members had received notice as of November 1, 2022; 187 opted out and 19 objections came from 31 class members.

What the settlements offered

Every class member got a “Special Election Letter” with projected rate increases and a set of options. A policyholder who chose to keep the policy unchanged received no damages payment: the court in No. 3:21-cv-19 wrote that “Those policyholders thus do not receive any damage payments”. The options differed by case.

Sources: court memorandum opinions in No. 3:21-cv-19 (ECF 115, filed June 28, 2022) and No. 3:22-cv-55 (ECF 137, filed January 30, 2023), each describing the settlement agreement's election options. The court in No. 3:22-cv-55 describes the options as amended by an agreement with objectors. The 2022 opinion says the first case reached a settlement with terms “similar” to those in No. 3:21-cv-19.

A worked example of the four-times formula (our arithmetic, illustrative). If a policyholder in the PCS group had a billed annual premium of $3,000 and chose a reduced-benefit option priced at $2,200 a year, the differential is $800 and the damages payment is four times that, $3,200. The policy would then carry a lower daily benefit, so the choice is between a smaller policy plus cash and the original policy at the higher premium.

What the filings say about money paid. Genworth does not give a single total for cash paid to policyholders. The 10-Q does mention $23 million of net insurance recoveries in nine months of 2026 “related to cash payments made to policyholders in connection with a prior legal settlement”, and the cumulative-benefit figure it reports is defined net of “cash payments made to policyholders who elected certain reduced benefit options in connection with the legal settlements”.

Deadlines. The 2023 10-K says election mailings “occur based on the policyholder's policy anniversary date”, so letters went out over the 12 months after each settlement began. We found no open class-wide deadline in the documents. Policyholders who received a letter should check the dates printed on it, which we have not seen.

Cases still pending

The 10-Q's litigation note lists one pending class action about long-term care rate increases. On January 17, 2025, GLIC, Genworth Life Insurance Company of New York and various AARP entities were named as defendants in a putative class action in the Superior Court of the District of Columbia, over the “My Future My Plan 2” series of LTC policies. The complaint alleges misrepresentation and inadequate disclosure of pricing and of the likelihood of rate increases, and that the Genworth defendants raised premiums because of the inflation protection component. Genworth removed it to the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia on April 17, 2025 and moved to dismiss on May 15, 2025. These are allegations; the 10-Q shows no ruling.

A second class action, in the Delaware Court of Chancery since September 2018, alleges that GLIC paid dividends to its parent and engaged in reinsurance transactions leaving it with inadequate capital to meet obligations to policyholders and agents. On October 23, 2026 the court granted Genworth's motion for summary judgment dismissing the complaint. The 10-Q says the company intends to continue to defend the action, and the filing does not say whether the plaintiffs will appeal.

Claims, reserves and capital

Sources: Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-071072): Note 8 Future Policy Benefits, Closed Block selected operating measures, MD&A key highlights and ratings. The 2025 comparison for reinsurance and premiums collected is the December 31, 2025 column of the same note.

Reading it (our arithmetic): benefit payments in nine months were about 2.0 times the net premiums collected in the same period, nearly the same ratio as in 2025 (about 2.0). The net liability fell $3,615 million (8.4%) from year-end, but the rollforward shows that most of this comes from the discount-rate line, which moved from $(905) million at December 31, 2025 to $(6,142) million at September 30, 2026 in the expected-benefits row. So the lower figure is mostly a discount-rate effect (our reading of the rollforward), not a statement that less is owed.

The 10-Q gives the reason for the lower RBC ratio, “a statutory loss in the current year primarily in our long-term care insurance products”, and says it will complete its annual cash flow assumption review and statutory cash flow testing in the fourth quarter of 2026. On the first, early analysis says the impacts “could be materially unfavorable in the aggregate, particularly in our long-term care insurance products”, though “a relatively small percentage change” compared with the liability. On the second, its “early assessment is that the margin in GLIC should remain positive”. Those are the company's statements, made before the work was finished.

What the filings say about strategy

Genworth calls its legacy blocks “self-sustaining” and says the rate action plan “continues to be our most effective tool”. The plan has two levers: premium increases, and benefit reductions that policyholders elect to avoid them. The filings state that renewal premiums are expected to decline as the block runs off, and that as the plan “enters its later stages” benefit reductions will count for more than increases. It added a Family Caregiver Benefit in September 2026 for policyholders in certain states who choose a benefit reduction, which can pay up to 75% of the median hourly cost of non-medical care.

For the policyholder, this means the filings treat premium increases as a continuing tool, with the 28% figure for 2026 the latest instalment. The company estimates the cumulative economic benefit of approved rate increases and benefit reductions since 2012 at approximately $35.0 billion on a net present value basis, up from approximately $34.5 billion at December 31, 2025 (about $0.5 billion more in nine months, our arithmetic). That figure is a company estimate and includes projected future premiums and reduced benefits.

The company ceased selling LTC through GLIC on October 1, 2025. Its new LTC business, CareScout Insurance, launched a Care Assurance worksite product in the third quarter of 2026; it does not change the terms of existing policies. Separately, Genworth's Form 8-K of November 9, 2026 reports a change of principal accounting officer and confirms that its Chief Financial Officer will become President and Chief Executive Officer on January 1, 2027.

What a reader can do with this

1. Read the rate notice against this table. Your state's approval may differ from the 28% average; the notice states the increase and the benefit-reduction alternatives, and the election is made at your policy anniversary.
2. Check which settlement, if any, covered your policy. The class definitions above are by policy series (Choice I, PCS I and II, Choice 2 and later). Your policy documents show the series. If you received a Special Election Letter, the choice you made then is binding on you.
3. Understand the tax and benefit-structure side before changing anything. Qualified LTC premiums can be deductible within limits (see our page on the LTC premium deduction), hybrid policies are treated differently (see LTC hybrids, 1035 exchanges and per-diem rules), and if your policy is a Partnership policy, reducing benefits can affect Medicaid asset protection (see the Partnership Program page).
4. Know the backstop. State guaranty associations step in if an insurer fails. Our page on annuity guaranty limits covers annuities, not LTC, and we do not restate LTC limits here.
5. Watch the next filing. The fourth-quarter assumption review should show up in the 2026 10-K; the 2025 10-K was filed on February 27, 2026, so expect the next one around late February 2027.

FAQ

Sources: Genworth Financial, Inc. (CIK 1276520) Form 10-Q for the quarter ended September 30, 2026 (accession 0001628280-26-071072, filed November 5, 2026); Form 10-K for 2025 (0001628280-26-012828); Forms 10-K for 2020 (0001193125-21-058267), 2022 (0001193125-23-053994) and 2023 (0001193125-24-051772); Forms 8-K of November 4, 2026 (0001628280-26-070165) and November 9, 2026 (0001276520-26-000049) on SEC EDGAR; and the memorandum opinions of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia in No. 3:21-cv-19 (ECF 115) and No. 3:22-cv-55 (ECF 137). Read on November 10, 2026. The last filing on EDGAR for this registrant is the Form 8-K dated November 9, 2026.