Long-term Care - Features & Benefits

When purchasing long-term care (LTC) insurance, your main decisions revolve around the following factors:

Daily benefit – You select the amount of money you would receive from the insurance company on a daily basis for your care, usually up to $500 per day. Find out what the current cost of care is in your area to help you decide what daily benefit you want. Also see "inflation protection" below.

Benefit period – You choose the length of time you receive payments from the insurance company once long-term care is initiated. In most cases, you can select a specific number of years—two, three, four, or five. Lifetime plans are also available. The average length of stay in a nursing home is two and a half to three years. A three-year plan is less expensive than a lifetime plan.

Elimination period (deductible) – You decide how many days of long-term care you agree to pay for before your LTC insurance benefits begin to be paid. The costs incurred during this time are, in effect, your deductible. Most long-term care plans offer a variety of options such as 0 days, 20 days, 60 days, or 100 days. Before purchasing, be sure to check if the elimination period must be reached once in a lifetime, or if it will repeat.

You should also consider the following factors when purchasing LTC insurance:

Inflation protection – Inflation protection increases your daily benefit on an annual basis to help keep your plan in step with inflation. Typically, you may choose either simple or compounded interest, an important option to consider if you are younger than 70 when you buy your LTC policy.

Home health care coverage – Some policies also give you the option of receiving insurance benefits in your own home. Home health care coverage may also cover community care such as adult day care centers and assisted-living facilities.

Nonforfeiture – Nonforfeiture provides some form of paid-up benefit if the policy should lapse.

Request a quote for LTC insurance.