| Long Term Care InsuranceFree Long Term Care Insurance Quotes |
Buying Long Term Care Insurance"Long Term Care Insurance" or "LTC" Insurance policies pay for medical care to treat chronic health problems in a nursing home or your own home. Paying a professional for custodial care in your home could easily cost up to $50 per hour. It depends on the facility and its location, but some nursing homes can cost up to $200 per day. That's more than $73,000 for a full year. It is estimated that persons in nursing homes stay for 2½ years on average. And costs will probably keep going up. No one likes to think about insurance or face the prospect of needing long-term health care; but starting about 2010, as the first of the post-war baby boom generation begins turning 65, the demand for Long-Term Care services is expected to rise dramatically.The chance of needing some type of long term care services is fairly high. It is estimated that over 40% of all persons who were 65 years old in 1990 will enter a nursing home during their lifetimes. The prospect of spending your last years in a nursing home can be very scary in itself. Even scarier is how to pay for it. You work and save all your life, only to see your retirement nest egg wiped out and your home sold to pay the high cost of a couple of years in a nursing home. Long-Term Care insurance is gaining importance among baby boomers as an option to meet future health expenses not covered by traditional health insurance. Long-term care insurance is about the only option that allows people to protect their assets and retain more control over their health-care decisions in this late-life situations. Those who do not have this preparation often have few alternatives but to spend down their assets until they qualify for Medicaid. In addition to promising to pay your nursing care bills, long term care insurance companies offer various features to make their long term care insurance policies more attractive than the competition. Each company has its own labels and definitions. Read the policy carefully to be sure of what you're buying. Some long term care insurance policies double as life insurance. Different companies have different plans. When you die, the company may pay your beneficiary part or all of the premiums you paid, minus any benefits the company has paid.  The types of places where you can get long-term care depends on what is allowed by your long term care insurance policy. There are four kinds of facilities where care is usually delivered, and long term care insurance policies generally include all four. Your long term care insurance policy will cover your care in one or more of the following: Nursing home, Adult day care center, Your home, Assisted living facility. Long term care insurance coverage, on the other hand, addresses Activities of Daily Living (ADL). Activities of Daily Living include bathing, controlling bladder and bowel functions, using the toilet, eating, and moving in and out of a chair or bed. It is the inability to handle these once routine circumstances that afflicts people in different degrees as they age. But no one person’s experience is identical to another's. Long-term care insurance is flexible. It is constructed to cover not just the costs of nursing home stays but a wide range of home health care, assisted living, and personal services. A good long term care insurance policy will meet your changing needs. Policies have "triggers" to determine when your physical or mental condition has reached a point that you are entitled to benefits. The examples here use language from a national model for non-qualified plans. Definitions in specific long term care insurancepolicies may be different. Long term care can mean many different things but any chronic or disabling condition that requires nursing care or constant supervision can bring on the need for long term care services. Long term care means not only care in a nursing home, it can also mean nursing care in your own home and help with the activities of daily living, such as dressing, eating, bathing and taking medicine. As the senior population grows and health care costs escalate, adult children are becoming increasingly concerned about caring for their aging parents. Many families are dealing with the challenges of mental or physical disability or prolonged illness. For thousands of others, these realities may be just around the corner. The challenge for these families is to provide the best possible long-term care for a parent without causing severe financial hardship for the rest of the family. In most cases, families must plan ahead without knowing the answers to key questions: Will a parent need round-the-clock nursing home care or assistance with daily activities such as bathing and dressing? Will home health care be enough? Will Medicare pay for it? Does the parent qualify for Medicaid? What cost will the family incur?
Shop around -- long-term care insurance policies can have big differences in price & benefits. Do your homework: get a realistic idea of what you need and how much you can afford to pay. Make sure you can pay the premiums and still have enough money for basic needs such as housing, food, medicines, etc. Give some thought to your choice of long-term care insurance companies. Think about factors such as the company's financial stability and quality of service it provides.  |
Long Term Care Insurance GlossaryAccelerated death benefit - A feature of some life insurance policies which permits you to use the money before you die to pay for long-term care expenses.Adult day care - is for persons living at home, and provides supervision for elderly persons during the day when family members are not at home. It is a method of delivering a variety and range of services including social and recreational, and in some cases, health services, in a group setting. Activities of daily living (ADL) - Many LTC policies start paying benefits when you are no longer able to perform basic actions without help. These actions are called activities of daily living. Adult day care - Care that is typically provided during daytime hours in a local senior or community center. 
Assisted living facilities provide ongoing care and related services to support those needs resulting from a person's inability to perform activities of daily living or a cognitive impairment. Benefit period - The length of time a policy will pay for services. It is usually described in years (one year, two years, etc.) A policy with a "lifetime" benefit period does not limit the number of years it will pay, but it may limit the total amount of dollars it will pay. Benefit trigger - The medical condition that qualifies you to begin receiving benefits from the policy. Care management - Most insurance companies will have a system for reviewing your medical records and verifying what kind of care you need. The company may contract with a separate "care management" organization. Cognitive impairment - An inability to take care of yourself as a result of loss of memory or some other mental deterioration. This includes such diseases as Alzheimer's and Parkinson's. In short: you're not thinking as well as you used to! Daily benefit - The maximum amount the policy will pay for each day of care. Elimination (deductible) period - The number of days you have to pay nursing home bills from your own pocket before the LTC policy starts to pay. Some policies call this the "elimination" period. Others call it the "deductible" period. Free-look period - The first 30 days after you receive a new policy. During this period you can cancel for any reason and receive a full refund. Guaranteed renewable - You have the right to renew your LTC policy for life, as long as you pay the premiums. The company cannot change the benefits. It can, however, increase premiums for all policies at the same time. Also see noncancellable. Home health care - consists of services received in your home, and can include skilled nursing care, speech, physical or occupational therapy or home health aide services. Inflation protection - A provision in a long-term care policy that permits benefits to increase in the future. There are different kinds and levels of inflation protection.
 Noncancellable - You have the right to renew your LTC policy for life, as long as you pay the premiums. The company cannot change the benefits or increase premiums. Also see guaranteed renewable. Nonforfeiture of benefits - Nonforfeiture guarantees you will receive something (such as limited benefits or a return of premium) if you cancel the policy or the company cancels because your payments stop. This feature usually increases the policy premium. Outline of coverage - A summary of a policy's benefits and limitations which is intended to make it easier to understand the policy and compare it with other policies. Pre-existing condition - A medical condition which was treated or diagnosed in the six months before you bought the policy. If you need care due to a pre-existing condition, and the care begins during the waiting period, some policies will not pay the claim. Reinstatement - Protection against unintentional (accidental) lapse. Reinstatement lets you save your LTC policy from cancellation if you miss payments because of mental impairment (such as Alzheimer's, senility, etc.). Spend down - A process by which you become eligible for Medicaid by using your own resources to pay medical bills until you reach the eligible income limits. Waiver of premium - A "waiver of premium" lets you stop paying premiums once you're receiving LTC. It may not take effect until the policy has paid your LTC bills for as long as three months. This is a common, built-in feature of LTC policies. |
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