Long-term care insurance covers any help needed by persons who have a chronic illness or disability and are unable to care for themselves. Whether this care is received in a nursing home or in your own home, it covers a wide range of services beyond medical and nursing care. These services include visiting nurses, meal delivery, help with chores and even help for caregivers.
Long-term care is costly. Most policies that cover these services are indemnity policies that pay a fixed amount for each day that care is received, ranging from $50 to hundreds of dollars per day. Daily benefits for at-home care are at the lower end of the range, while nursing home care is the most expensive.
Purchasing Long-Term Care Insurance
If you are buying a long-term care policy, consider the following:
- Which services are covered (e.g., nursing home care, home health care, adult daycare, help for caregivers).
- The daily payments for each service.
- How long the benefits will last.
- The maximum lifetime benefit, if any.
- The maximum length of coverage for each period of confinement (in a nursing home or at home).
- The waiting period for pre-existing conditions.
- What assessments or exams are needed.
- Whether the policy is guaranteed renewable.
- The age range for enrollment.
- Whether there is a waiver-of-premium. This provision means that the insurer will keep up your policy without premiums if you become totally disabled before age 60 or 65.
- How long the period of confinement is before premiums are waived.
- Whether the policy has a nonforfeiture benefit, which protects a portion of your benefits if you stop paying premiums.
- Whether the policy has an inflation adjustment feature, which increases your benefits by a small percentage each year. This helps ensure that coverage bought today will pay for the cost of long-term care in the future.
- The cost of the policy.
Updated 02/02/09
