Things to Consider When Buying Long Term Care Insurance

Are you concerned about your security as you get older? Perhaps you don’t want to have to worry about whether you will be able to afford a nursing home, home health services or other care if you become ill or disabled at any age? In either case, long-term care insurance might be the right solution.

Long-term care coverage is a comprehensive benefit that is designed to cover the costs of facilities and in-home care that provides ongoing assistance to someone who needs it.  However, you will need to keep a few things in mind when searching for coverage. 

Ask yourself the following questions to better gauge how to structure your long-term care benefits:

1. Does My Health Insurance Cover Long-Term Care?

Long-term care might be care received in a nursing home, rehabilitation facility, adult daycare, or through a home health agency. It is designed not necessarily to cover someone’s medical care only, but rather to address the need they have for help with everyday living. 

In some cases, health insurance and Medicare already provide coverage for long-term home health or facility care. However, by examining these plans you will likely see that they impose strict limits on both how long they will cover this care and how much they will pay for it. Therefore, without long-term care insurance, you might only be able to make your health insurance go so far.

2. Do I Qualify for Long-Term Care Insurance?

Even once you have long-term care insurance, you cannot use it arbitrarily. Generally, to trigger a claim on your plan, you will generally need assistance with fundamental acts of everyday living. For example, you might need help: 

Depending on the structure of your plan, you might have to meet two or even three of these qualifications before you can file your claim. However, if you are already in or about to move to a facility, you will likely have already reached the threshold.

3. How Will It Pay Me?

Your plan will include its own rules on how much care it will cover, and most plans will only pay up to a daily or monthly limit for the cost of your care. For example, if you receive a monthly benefit of $4,000, but receive $4,750 worth of care one month, then you will have to pay the $750 difference yourself. That’s why it’s important to work with your agent to determine the best benefits structure for your overall care needs.

Long-term care insurance is a good investment for most people, provided that you get the right coverage. Our agents are eager to work with you to make sure you receive optimized, valuable benefits to your advantage.