Review of the Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage (2025) Policy
June 20, 2025
Well, it has been a long 6 years for Lincoln Financial. Once the king of the hybrid long term care arena, Lincoln has spent the last 6 years in brokerage purgatory as new long term care policies were introduced from the competition with more flexible LTC benefits for less expensive pricing. It was odd to see the Moneyguard policy no longer discussed, or recommended really, among long term care insurance specialists for so many years. With past low interest rates, it seemed as if Lincoln was content to market its variable LTC products which shift the investment risk to the policyholder, rather than offer a competitive fixed guaranteed insurance product. Now that interest rates have been at current higher levels for a few years, Lincoln has certainly determined that it is comfortable offering a competitively priced fixed guaranteed hybrid LTC product once again.
A Quick Overview of Hybrid Long Term Care Insurance
Lincoln Moneyguard is one of a dozen hybrid long term care insurance products that are available in the marketplace today. Hybrid long term care policies (aka asset-based) are cash value life insurance policies or annuities that provide long term care benefits through riders. The policies are very popular and are preferred by consumers and advisors for long term care planning for a few reasons today.
First, the premiums are fixed and guaranteed to never change, unlike traditional LTC insurance which are non-guaranteed and may pass along premium rate increases to you.
Secondly, hybrid LTC policies will return your paid premium to you through a death benefit if care is not needed by you. So, unlike traditional LTC policies, you do not experience a use-it-or-lose-it scenario.
The design of hybrid long term care insurance policies is exactly the same as the design of stand-alone long term care insurance policies.
You have three decisions to make with LTC insurance policies generally:
- How much monthly LTC benefit do you want to buy (in today's dollars)?
- How many years would you like to receive your monthly benefit should you make a long term care claim?
- Do you want to include automatic annual inflation protection to increase your monthly benefit as you grow older?
So, fairly straight forward and easy for you. How much monthly benefit do you want and for how long? And do you want to include inflation protection, or not?
With long term care insurance policies, benefits are payable to you when you become chronically ill and require care either at home, or as a resident within assisted living or nursing facilities.
So, with this overview in mind, let's take a closer look at the Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage Features and Benefits.
Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage Product Features and Benefits
Issue Ages: 40 - 80
Couples Discount: automatically applies to individuals who are legally married, or have a partner in a civil union or domestic partnership or are in a common-law marriage. There is no requirement to have policies issued to each partner to receive the Couples Discount.
Premiums: may be paid as a single premium or up to 10 years depending upon age of issue.
Amount of Coverage: Minimum specified amount of death benefit: $50,000. ($2083 monthly LTC) Maximum specified amount $500,000.($20,833 Maximum monthly LTC)
LTC Benefit Periods: 3 years, 4 years, 5 years or 6 years
Inflation Protection: 3% compound or 5% compound
Return of Premium Options: 70% all years or 100% vested after 10 years
Elimination Period: Once eligible there is no deductible or waiting period for long term care benefits to begin
Benefit Transfer Rider: Included for no additional cost. This rider provides Moneyguard beneficiaries, who are also insured on a separate policy, the ability to increase their total long term care benefits using a potion or all of their death claim proceeds.
Reimbursement or Indemnity Benefit Option: If electing reimbursement, 100% of your monthly benefit is available. If electing cash indemnity, 80% of your monthly benefit is payable. Your election at time of claim is irrevocable.
So, what's new with the 2025 Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage policy?
Well, Lincoln has introduced 2 primary changes.
The biggest change is Lincoln is now attempting to address the competition in the LTC insurance marketplace that developed rapidly 5-6 years ago. After Covid, consumers felt very strongly about preferring to stay at home to receive care, if at all possible, rather than entering facilities. Consumers demanded flexibility in the policies, including the ability to have care provided by family, if possible.
In the long term care insurance arena, many policies were introduced that no longer required receipts of paid formal care to be submitted for reimbursement of insurance benefits. All informal care was covered, including care by family members. Additionally, proof of loss forms are not required. These policy models are known as cash indemnity models, and provide greater flexibility while eliminating the hassle of reimbursement policies.
Lincoln Moneyguard has always been a 100% reimbursement model.
The cash indemnity competition began eating Lincoln's lunch 6 years ago.
Lincoln has finally addressed the elephant in the room and is now offering a cash indemnity option, albeit a reduced benefit option, not 100% cash like the competition.
With Lincoln, you can now choose 100% reimbursement or 80% cash indemnity when you initially file your claim. Unfortunately, your choice of payout model is irrevocable, once elected (definitely sucks, Lincoln should give you the choice to change if your needs change).
So, a step in the right direction. Not perfect, yet. But better than it was.
The second change is Lincoln is now separately identifying the premiums paid for life insurance and the premiums paid for LTC insurance. This will allow you to possibly receive tax deductions for eligible LTC insurance premiums. Other policies have separately identified the LTC premiums for a number of years, so this is a welcome change.
So, with these improvements in mind, let's take a much closer look at how Lincoln Moneyguard stacks up against the competition with its new pricing.
Now, with Lincoln's policy design, I will inform you upfront that it is generally a fairly cookie cutter approach. Almost always, Lincoln Moneyguard will be designed with a 6 year LTC benefit period, 3% compound inflation protection and a 70% return of premium.
Your only real decisions will be how much monthly long term care benefit do you want initially, and how many years do you want to pay your premium?
If you do seek longer LTC benefit periods, such as 7 years or 8 years, or Unlimited, other policies will offer you these longer durations, but not Lincoln Moneyguard. If you do need payment plans longer than 10 years, other policies will offer these options, as well.
Thus, for the purpose of comparing pricing we will look at the competition with the design that Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage will generally be presented to you with: the 6 year benefit period, and 3% inflation protection.
We will have to select an initial monthly benefit to start a conversation, so let's select $7500 month. This is a reasonable initial monthly LTC benefit today to begin a conversation. The cost of care can certainly be higher than $7500 month, depending upon where you live and how much care is needed, however a monthly LTC benefit of $7500 month can be a good starting point I believe.
I will keep it simple for you. We can look at single premium designs for males and females, ages 50, 60 and 70. I will include the Couples Discounts with all companies.
Spoiler alert: You will see that Lincoln's new Fixed Advantage pricing is decent, especially good at age 60.
Lincoln's primary competition today is with Nationwide, Securian and, to a lesser extent, OneAmerica.
OneAmerica offers Lifetime unlimited long term care insurance benefits for much more premium generally than the 6 year individual benefit periods available through Lincoln, Nationwide and Securian. So, for today's comparison, let's focus on the limited individual 6 year benefit periods available through Nationwide and Securian.
Nationwide also does have its joint CareMatters Together policy with a shared 8 year benefit period that we can also compare to Lincoln Moneyguard.
The primary distinction with Lincoln, Nationwide and Securian is that Nationwide and Securian are each always 100% cash indemnity policies. With Nationwide and with Securian, you will not receive a 20% reduction in your monthly LTC benefits should you want to eliminate the restrictive reimbursement model as you will with Lincoln. So, we would expect Lincoln's policy to be less expensive than the Nationwide and Securian policies in a perfect world.
Here is the pricing for the ages 50,60 and 70. The links to the complete illustration files are also provided for all companies for you to download to review.
Age 50, Single Premium, $7500 mo. initial LTC benefit, 6 year benefit period, 3% compound inflation protection
This plan design will provide a 50 yr old at age 85 with a $21,104 monthly LTC benefit, & a total LTC benefit available of $1,638,109.
50 year old male single pay premiums
50 year old female single pay premiums
50 year old male & female joint life single pay 8 years shared benefit period, 3% compound inflation
In reviewing the singe pay premiums above for married males and married females you will see that Lincoln's premiums are in fact, the lowest, but not by very much. The margins are very small for 50 year olds. I would probably have a difficult time not electing one of the 100% cash indemnity policies available through Securian or through Nationwide at these margins. Additionally, the Nationwide joint CareMatters Together policy pricing that will save you 12% premium over purchasing 2 individual policies is also attractive to me.
Age 60, Single Premium, $7500 mo. initial LTC benefit, 6 year benefit period, 3% compound inflation protection
This plan design will provide a 60 yr old at age 85 with a $15,704 monthly LTC benefit, & a total LTC benefit available of $1,218,906.
60 year old male single pay premiums
60 year old female single pay premiums
60 year old male & female joint life single pay 8 years shared benefit period, 3% compound inflation
Now, the 60 year old pricing is the most interesting to me for Lincoln. As you can see, for age 60 male and female applicants the Lincoln pricing is priced very aggressively. You can certainly save premium with Lincoln at age 60 when compared to Securian SecureCare and Nationwide CareMatters. If you are totally comfortable with the 100% primary reimbursement model that Lincoln offers then you can absolutely make a case for the Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage policy in this 60 year old age group.
Age 70, Single Premium, $7500 mo. initial LTC benefit, 6 year benefit period, 3% compound inflation protection
This plan design will provide a 70 yr old at age 85 with a $11,685 monthly LTC benefit, & a total LTC benefit available of $906,981.
70 year old male single pay premiums
70 year old female single pay premiums
70 year old male & female joint life single pay 8 years shared benefit period, 3% compound inflation
Now, as you can see the 70 year old pricing just isn't attractive for Lincoln. The Securian SecureCare policy will be less expensive than Lincoln, and Securian will provide you with 100% cash indemnity benefits too. And the joint life Nationwide CareMatters Together pricing might be the best value, of all, however you will need to be aware that the joint life Nationwide product does have an issue limit of age 70 cutoff.
So, at much older ages I would probably not recommend Lincoln at all, generally speaking.
Final Thoughts On The New Lincoln Moneyguard Fixed Advantage (2025) Policy
Lincoln Moneyguard is now a much better proposition than it was for the past 5 years. Lincoln's pricing has improved, especially near the age 60 ranges, and the addition of an 80% cash indemnity option, although not a perfect option, is much better than not having any cash indemnity option at all. I do have a feeling that Lincoln might get some pushback from advisors on the irrevocable nature of choosing the 80% cash option.
Lincoln, if you are listening, in future policies if you are insisting upon reducing monthly LTC benefits by electing cash payout, you should provide the insured the option on a month-by-month basis to elect cash indemnity or reimbursement. Your policyholders may begin a claim at home and be attracted at first to cash indemnity. As the claim progresses, your policyholders may move into assisted living or a nursing home and have monthly bills to submit receipts. The fairer approach would be to allow your policyholders to revert to 100% reimbursement as their needs change, if you do not want to move in the direction of 100% cash indemnity that your competitors are already offering.
Anyway, I know Lincoln is fully aware of these issues, however reimbursement designs are more profitable for the insurance company than cash indemnity models.
The good news is Lincoln Moneyguard is moving back into conversations, where they were entirely absent before.
Receive Personalized Long Term Care Insurance Advice
I will be pleased to help you fully explore all of your insurance options with long term care planning. To discuss your needs and to receive customized illustrations, please call me toll free directly at (800) 891-5824. Or you may request a free quote through my website. I work with all of the leading underwriters including Nationwide, OneAmerica, Lincoln, Securian, Brighthouse, Mutual of Omaha, John Hancock, Thrivent, National Guardian, Global Atlantic, EquiTrust and more. We are your one-stop shop for long term care!
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