Marc Cohen, co-director of the LeadingAge LTSS Center @UMass Boston, is the first recipient of a Special Recognition Award from the Intercompany Long Term Care Insurance Conference Association honoring him for a career of contributions to the field of long-term care finance.

His nomination for the award cited work by Cohen and colleagues that “was responsible for bringing together key design parameters and gerontology knowledge that created the foundation for today’s long term care finance product.”

It said Cohen “works with the greatest integrity and collaborates broadly with all spectrums of the aging community in both the public and private sectors, industry and government. His dedication to the field and his commitment to work excellence is unparalleled.”

The conference’s Special Recognition Award was created to highlight the contributions of long-term care providers, financiers, regulators, legislators and research or policy experts in the field.

Nominees are expected to exhibit an “extraordinary commitment to the industry through ingenuity, length of service and dedication.”

Cohen has conducted ongoing research of the long-term care insurance market for more than two decades, first at Brandeis University, later LifePlans Inc. and now at the LTSS Center. Most recently, he presented an ambitious new long-term services and supports finance concept that combined private insurance with public catastrophic coverage. Cohen and colleague Judith Feder of Georgetown University and the Urban Institute presented the plan at a conference hosted by the Bipartisan Policy Center in January.

In addition to his role at the LTSS Center, Cohen is also a professor at UMass Boston’s McCormack Graduate School. He is also the research director of the Center for Consumer Engagement in Health Innovation at Community Catalyst, a national non-profit advocacy organization.

Cohen said the Special Recognition Award was “truly humbling, knowing how many incredibly dedicated, smart, and committed people there are in our field.  It’s a wonderful feeling to know that the work you chose to pursue in your professional life is viewed by people that you respect and care about as worthy and having made a difference.”

Cohen was presented with the special recognition award at the annual ILTCI Conference on March 19 in Las Vegas by conference chair Sharon M. Reed.