Long Term Care Insurance Blog

We’re going to make this a short post, but that doesn’t mean it’s any less important. Matter of fact, among many of the issues regarding escalating costs in health care and long-term care costs in particular, this may in fact be one of the biggest:

He contended this is a “huge” system issue, which will only be resolved with additional LTC beds or enhanced home-care services in order to enable keeping senors living in their home longer.

This statement, from an article in a local Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, newspaper, the Sault Star illustrates an issue that may not only cripple the Canadian health care system, but could (is) having a huge impact on the the US system as well. That is, more seniors are spending time in hospitals, assisted-living facilities and nursing facilities, than at home. If seniors could stay at home, and receive home-health care services, there would be a far less financial burden on just about everyone, from the hospitals to the families.

Do you think we should try and keep the elderly at home?

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This is the last post in a series of discussions about long term care & LTC insurance, based on a video series by Kiplinger’s Long Term Care Center. Over the past couple weeks we’ve looked at what long term care is, the costs of long term care as well as how to pay for long term care. If you’re now considering long term care insurance, the last question is, how do choose the best long term care insurance company?

Top 5 factors you should be aware of when choosing a long term care insurance company:

• Is the company stable?
• Are the premiums affordable? (Both now and in the future, when, if, income declines)
• What about rate increases? Years ago folks were screaming about LTCI companies who said rates wouldn’t increase, but they did anyway. Thankfully this is changing, as the insurance companies gain a better idea of costs incurred over the life of a plan as well as new regulations
• When ready to buy, who should I talk to? This is important and many may not realize just how important. Working with licensed long term care insurance professional will greatly reduce the chances of being sold a policy that isn’t right for you.
• Do you homework, get professional help, base your decision on what makes sense for you!

We have put together a post rating the best long term care insurance companies. You can read it HERE

You can watch the entire video series on Kiplinger HERE

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We’re excited to announce a neat little feature we’ve added to our long term care insurance blog – a live Twitter feed containing the most up-to-date news & views on long term care and long term care insurance. Go now – Live Feed – Long Term Care

Long Term Care Insurance

This is part 4 of a discussion we’re having on a series of videos provided by Kiplinger’s Long Term Care Center. Previous entries included:

1. What is Long Term Care?
2. Long Term Care Costs How Much
3. Paying for Long-Term Care Costs

We’re going to keep this discussion short and to the point. If you’re looking into insurance for long term care, there are really TWO major factors that will impact long term care insurance costs. They are:

Age – how old are you when you purchase a policy?

Health – how is your health when you purchase a policy?

Of all the factors that influence LTC insurance costs, these two will, in most cases, have the largest impact on what your premiums will be. Yes, there are other factors, such as the elimination period and daily benefits. And there are ways to get discounts as well, including:

• Spouse / Partner – Savings up to 40%
• Preferred Health – Savings up to 20%
• Increase your Deducible – Save up to 10%
• Small Business – Save up to 5%
• Buy Before an Age Change – Savings of 5-10%

To give you an idea of how age can save you hundreds of dollars a month, try our unique long term care insurance costs calculator

Get a An Estimate of Long Term Care Insurance Costs By Clicking Above

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This is our 3rd discussion about a series of long-term care videos provided by Kiplinger’s. If you missed the first two, they are HERE and HERE. Today’s topic receives a lot of attention, especially given the rising costs of health care and long-term care costs in particular.

So, how do you pay for long-term care? Does everyone need long-term care insurance? The video breaks it down into a couple segments, which we generally agree with:

• There are those who will simply pay for any long term care costs out-of-pocket themselves because they have the money
• Another group of folks will depend on Medicaid. Remember, Medicaid is basically a program for the poor. Your total assets need to be  below $2000 in order to qualify for Medicaid services.
• Some will depend on using their current assets to pay for long term care, such as their home. It’s becoming more and more common for home-owners to take out a reverse mortgage
• There will always be those who simply take the chance that long term care will not be necessary

Who is going to buy long term care insurance? That too can vary widely but everyone needs to be able to pay the monthly premiums. If you’re unsure about what the average monthly premiums will be, you can get a free estimate of long term care insurance rates on our site. Monthly premiums will almost always be lower the younger you apply, while you are still healthy.

Another group will purchase insurance for long term care because they want to be able to pass along their nest egg to their kids.

For our next post, we’ll take a closer look at how long term care insurance policies work (and what you should be aware of), but here are some points to keep in mind:

• What is the policies waiting period, or elimination period? This is typically 30- 90 days and is basically the number of days you will need to wait once care is required.
• Daily Benefit – this is the amount of care you’ll receive per day, although, as the video points out, “daily” is a bit untrue. If you don’t use your maximum daily amount, this money goes into a pool that can be used at a later time. LTCI policies are not a use-it-or-lose-it deal
• What do LTCI policies pay for? nursing homes, at-home care, assisted-living facility

Get a An Estimate of Long Term Care Insurance Costs By Clicking Above

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Video 2 of the Kiplinger series asks the question many of us want the answer to: how much does long term care cost? If only there were an easy answer. The video provides some decent insight into this.

There are many factors that impact the cost of long term care, the most obvious being, where in country you live. Secondly, what level of care do you require? As the video states, costs can vary quite dramatically from city to city, state to state. Our recommendation: ask around before you need care.

So what can you expect to pay for the different types of long term care?

• assisted living – $3000/month but again, this will vary widely depending on where you live
• nursing home care – $75,000 year but also varies widely
• home-health care – this too will vary, by location as well as the amount of home-health care required. For example, do you just need a couple hours a day or 24-hr care?

Without being too critical, don’t take the “interview” with their guest the end-all-be-all for nursing home and home health aid advice. Personally we found her to be a bit um, over-dramatic. Yes there are nursing homes that aren’t well managed, this is not, and should not, be considered the norm.

There’s a misperception that the majority of long term care takes place in nursing homes, when in fact, according to recent studies, only about 20% of long term is delivered in nursing homes. Most would prefer receiving care at home. But is care at home cheaper? Again, it can be. If you require 24/7 care, costs are really going to add up.

It’s not covered in great detail, but it’s probably one of the most important topics covered here: how do you pay for long-term care? Or maybe we should rephrase the question: who pays for long term care? Is this where medicaid comes into play? Medicaid will cover some costs, but you need to spend down assets, down to $2000. Think this is easy, think you can just “gift” your money? Think again. New laws are making this more difficult.

Coming up – Paying For Long Term Care

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A couple weeks ago we promised we would take a look at a series of videos published by Kiplinger that focus on long term care planning and long term care insurance. Well, here we are. The video series contains 7 episodes, although we’re going skip the introduction and jump right to the second one, which starts with the basics:

What is long-term care?

We’ve defined this many (many) times before, but here it is, defined by Wikipedia:

Long-term care (LTC) is a variety of services which help meet both the medical and non-medical need of people with a chronic illness or disability who cannot care for themselves for long periods of time.

This first video doesn’t necessarily go into a huge amount of detail about long term care, but it brings to light a couple important, but often overlooked, details about long term care:

• Long term care doesn’t have to take place in a nursing home. Matter of fact, only about 20% of those needing long term care go to a nursing home. There are options for LTC BEFORE it’s even necessary, such as an active adult community, where adults 55 and older stay.
• Think about long term care while you’re young and healthy and active. Also think about how you’re going to pay for it. Long term care is, and is getting even more, expensive
• Long term care is considered custodial care NOT medical care, which means it’s generally not covered by health insurance or medicare

You can view the first video HERE

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Sounds like a reasonable question right? Assisting living insurance will cover nursing home costs. Let’s think about this. Hmmm… The truth is, it’s kind of a trick question. First of all, there really is no such thing as assisted living insurance per se. Although you may hear someone claim they’ve purchased assisted-living insurance, they’re confusing it with long term care insurance, which will cover someone who enters an assisted-living facility.

So now that we know what assisted-living insurance is, or isn’t, we can answer the second half of this question, which literally speaking is obviously not true. Instead, the question should be asked is, will long term care insurance cover our nursing home cost? The answer to that is yes.

Last but not least, it’s important to understand that assisted-living facilities are NOT the same as nursing homes. Many people confuse the two and often think they’re one and the same. This just isn’t true. Most people will enter an assisted-living facility before going to a nursing home.

Our next post will include an explanation of why it’s important to understand the difference between assisted living and a nursing home. Subscribe to our long term care insurance blog and be the first to know

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