Terry Truesdell, President/ CEO of the National LTC Network, produced a key planning session at the 12th annual Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference held in Las Vegas last month.

The topic was how to grow industry sales to a billion dollars. The panel consisted of both leading carrier executives and distributors:

Buck Stinson, President, U.S. Insurance Products, Genworth Financial;

Marianne Harrison, President & General Manager, John Hancock Long-Term Care;

Louis Brownstone, Past Chairman of the National LTC Network and Chairman, California Long Term Care;

Steve Cain, Executive Vice President, Sales Leader, LTCI Partners.

The brief presentations and subsequent discussions focused on the following areas:

1) potential future government reductions in entitlement spending and consequences to the long term care continuum;

2) role of insurance carriers in bringing new and attractive products to market;

3) need to change the way in which long term care insurance is sold; and

4) challenges in increasing the number, training and quality of distributors.

Louis Brownstone commented on the session, "The long term care insurance industry is at an interesting and exciting point. The need for protection against long term care costs has never been more obvious. The majority consensus at the conference was that continued new product innovation by carriers and adaptation to change by distributors are critical to adequately address the pressing problem of providing long term care solutions to Americans. Terry's session helped forward that agenda."

Truesdell, a recognized industry leader, guided the panel into a provocative deep dive into these issues. For further information on the conference, www.iltciconf.org