How Carol Barbour Is Using Data to Redefine Aging and LTC Insurance

In this episode of Voices of Long-Term Care Insurance, we sit down with Carol Barbour, President & CEO of Vigor Health, whose career has consistently been a decade ahead of the curve. From pioneering aging-in-place care models in the ’80s to building a tech-forward wellness company in 2022, Carol shares how data, engagement, and behavioral change are transforming the future of aging—and long-term care insurance.

Topics we explore:

• How Carol helped launch Friends Life Care and the continuing care-at-home movement
• Why early engagement and predictive modeling make wellness programs actually work
• What Vigor Health is doing to bring startup innovation into the LTCI space
• The role of music therapy, caregiver support, and virtual care in today’s aging journey
• Her vision for a new LTCI product built for the next generation

Whether you’re a carrier, care provider, innovator, or just someone thinking about the future of aging, this episode is full of insights that might just change how you think about long-term care.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro to Voices of LTCI & guest Carol Barbour
• 0:19 How Carol Barbour pioneered aging-in-place before it was mainstream
• 1:30 Carol Barbour’s nontraditional entry into long-term care as a music therapist
• 2:55 Launching Friends Life Care: An alternative to CCRC models
• 4:45 Overlap between Friends Life Care and long-term care insurance
• 6:00 How care management and wellness were built into the Friends Life Care model
• 7:45 The data behind what keeps people aging well at home
• 9:15 Carol Barbour on motivating behavioral change through care engagement
• 10:50 High-impact wellness interventions: What actually worked
• 12:40 The power of longitudinal data and predictive modeling
• 14:00 Transitioning to Vigor Health: Lessons from Friends Life Care
• 15:25 Building trust virtually: How Vigor Health engages LTCI policyholders
• 16:50 Vigor Health’s use of predictive risk models from 30 years of care data
• 18:10 Carol Barbour on creating a new long-term care insurance product
• 19:45 Designing LTCI for digital engagement and caregiver support
• 21:00 The continued power of music therapy in aging and dementia care
• 22:10 Carol Barbour’s biggest lessons transitioning from nonprofit to startup CEO
• 23:45 How the LTCI industry can embrace wellness and redefine its future
• 25:05 Final thoughts: Why Vigor Health is shaping the next generation of care
• 26:50 Outro: Subscribe for more conversations on innovation in long-term care