From Genworth Financial: On April 15, 2013, we implemented a new Long Term Care insurance underwriting and case management workflow in conjunction with the launch of Privileged Choice® Flex 2 and underwriting changes. As you are well aware, we have encountered issues in transitioning to the new workflow, causing delays in processing new applications.
We sincerely regret the processing delays and understand the challenges these delays present to your business and to you personally. Please know we remain committed to resolving them as quickly as possible.
We previously announced that we planned to return to the California long term care insurance market on July 1st. At this time, our quality of service is not at an acceptable level to execute the California launch. The combination of large volumes of applications, recent product and underwriting changes, and systems performance are pressuring our ability to provide acceptable service. Putting more volume into the current service situation will only put additional pressure on our ability to provide the service standard our distribution partners and new clients deserve.
Consequently, we will postpone our return to California for 30 days, and anticipate launching broadly on August 1, 2013. We will allow a limited number of Retail agents to sell in California starting on July 1st to test the service experience and determine when it has improved. If we are satisfied with the performance and can provide a high quality of service with consistently stable systems, then we will return earlier than 30 days. We have a responsibility to you and your new clients, to our existing clients, and to our goal of ensuring the Genworth brand represents high quality service.
We sincerely thank you for your patience and for all you do for your clients and for Genworth. Please reach out to us or any member of the Genworth team with your questions. We will continue to provide updates as we work through these issues and return to normal operations.