This report presents the results of a survey conducted by Mathew Greenwald & Associates, Inc. among premium paying and annuitized TIAA-CREF participants. The purpose of this study was to examine participants’ familiarity with and attitudes toward long-term care assistance.
Information for this study was gathered through twenty-minute telephone interviews with 450 premium paying participants and 249 annuitants selected at random from TIAA-CREF’s database. Respondents were asked about their perceptions of long-term care, their awareness of long-term care assistance options, their own experiences with long-term care and long-term care insurance, and their interest in several long-term care insurance and assistance options that could be offered by TIAA-CREF. They were also asked a short series of background questions to help categorize their responses.
A portion of the questionnaire consisted of a short quiz covering basic knowledge of long-term care assistance. These questions come from a 1996 national survey on long-term care sponsored by the National Council on Aging and John Hancock Mutual Life Insurance. Following the completion of the interviewing, respondents received a fact sheet from TIAA-CREF giving the correct answers to each of those questions.
Trained, professional interviewers at National Research, Inc. of Washington, DC, under the supervision of Greenwald & Associates, conducted telephone interviewing. Calling took place January 6-28, 1998.
The samples for this study were stratified by age and gender in order to maximize the number of interviews available for analysis within each category. The survey results were then weighted to reflect the actual mix of age and gender within the premium paying and annuitant populations. (Appendix A of the document contains more detailed information on the survey methodology and procedures used to weight the results.)
The sampling error for this study, at the 95% confidence level, is plus or minus approximately five percentage points for the premium paying sample results, and plus or minus approximately seven percentage points for results from the annuitant sample. Subgroup responses will have larger margins of sampling error, depending on the size of the group.
Included in this document are an Overview of the Survey Results, a Profile of the Survey Respondents, and a Detailed Report of Findings for each question asked on the survey. Detailed results are broken out by sample and by age, gender, and other characteristics where there is a significant difference between groups. Appendix A contains detailed information about the survey methodology and procedures used to weight the results. Appendix B contains the survey questionnaire and overall results for each question. Appendix C contains a separate analysis prepared by the survey research staff at TIAA-CREF that examines selected survey findings and the long-term care insurance needs of TIAA-CREF participants.
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