<p>Last year we attended a Financial Planning class, and the instructor mentioned the importance of 50-something couples considering Long Term Care Insurance (LTC). He explained that most policies cover in-home care, ie nursing home-avoidance. That sounded good to us. </p>
<p>Of course LTC insurance can be pricey, especially for those of us paying college bills. I thought I’d start this thread to collect some examples. Obviously much will depend on the policy, age, health etc. Just hoping to share some ballpark numbers for research sake.</p>
<p>I’ll start, since we checked into a Group Plan offered at DH’s work. We’ve heard that group plans are sometimes cheaper, with less medical condition paperwork. </p>
<p>Age-gender: Policy - cost/month </p>
<p>58(male): $6K/month, $216max, incl in-home care - $125/mo</p>
<p>51(female) $6K/month, $216Kmax, incl in-home care - $74/mo </p>
<p>51(female) $3K/month, $108Kmax " $33/mo
same - 3% COLA $78/mo
same 5% COLA $129/mo</p>
<p>Again, this is just meant to generally show ballpark figures, impact of age and COLA (cost of living adjusments).</p>
<p>I briefly looked at rates for this from my insurance company and was surprised to find the max out benefit at 200K. Now, I spent close to 600K for my Mom’s long term care over the last 10 years, so I immediately dropped the search.</p>
<p>Didn’t matter, as the company wouldn’t even consider me because of my weight, so no problem there.</p>
<p>I was 51 at the time, just turned 52, so thought I would start looking.</p>
<p>After my parents got sc**wed when Dad’s very large employer dropped it’s LTC for current and retired employees, I would shy away from buying through an employer. My dad had been paying LTC for years, but once the employer dropped the program, there was no option to continue. By that time, my mom was in poor health … so just when they could have used it, it was gone, and it would have been a fortune to get another policy at that point, even if they could have done so.</p>
<p>My in laws have LTC, and they started paying when they were in their 60’s. They are in their mid-late 80’s now. They pay a lot … my MIL had a pacemaker, so it jacked up her rates … but they feel it is worth the money so they will always be able to stay in their own home.</p>
<p>When I worked in group insurance, a rep from a very large insurance company told me it is a huge money-loser, due to the risk pool involved. Very few companies offer LTC as a result (this company got out long ago, when they realized it wasn’t worth it for them).</p>
<p>So is it typical that the total benefit is capped at the 200k range? We have local nursing homes that purport to charge private-pay patients 10,000+ per month. Even using the 6k per month benefit cap, 200k gets consumed in under three years. It doesn’t seem like long term care is the right term for it. </p>
<p>And it appears that having the benefit level adjusted by 3-5% annually costs double the premium without that?</p>
<p>And I’m assuming that you have to keep paying the premium each year between when you sign up and you need to file a claim. Does the premium stay level, or does it go up over time?</p>
<p>When I was investigating long term care, noticed there was a huge difference, based on whether you had COLA and what the maximum payout was. The premiums for H and I were higher than we could afford with facing two college tuitions. Since then, I am no longer qualified for any LTC policy, due to chronic health issues. We will just have to be self-insured, I guess. We do have some assets and will be able to make it work. </p>
<p>One thing some others mentioned is seeing if any life insurance policies you own may transfer to LTC policies.</p>
<p>DH and I just bought LTC insurance. It was a little more expensive to get the inflation-adjusted policy, but we felt it was worth it. My inflation protection is 5%, DH’s is 3%. The way it was priced, we each have a benefit of $200/day for 5 years in current dollars. What that really means is that the daily benefit gets multiplied by 5 years to give you the total benefit cap of the policy, which is $365,000. You don’t have to use the benefit within a 5-year period, that’s just the period used to determine the cap.</p>
<p>The premium must be paid each year. In theory it can increase, but California makes it so difficult for companies to raise rates that in practice it never increases. </p>
<p>We’re in the super-premium underwriting class or something like that, basically the class with the best health and lowest risk. Total cost was around $6700/year.</p>
<p>I just spoke with my financial planner and he said that as of today (Nov 1) rates have increased 30% almost across the board for all California participants. Insurance companies are getting squeezed by the length of time people are claiming their expenses.</p>
<p>Im dealing with a family member’s policy right now and my advice is to be very careful to understand what type of facility it covers. Also if it covers in-home care make sure you understand that. So far my family member’s insurance has rejected all 4 facilities I’ve requested. There is a difference between a nursing home and an assisted living facility…at least with regard to my family member’s policy. My family member needs assistance living and is not safe at home, but does not need a high level of nursing care. She’s in some kind of donut hole, so check specifics. Her’s cost around $900 a year with a 90 day qualifying period.</p>
<p>Many of the older policies only covered skilled nursing, so some families are coming in for a rude shock when they try to file claims against their LTC policies to pay for in-home care or assisted living.</p>
<p>It’s very common to require a doctor’s certification that care is needed, even for the more current policies that cover in-home care and AL.</p>
<p>I pretty much have the same coverage as vballmom and I live in Ca., too. My plan is a little less generous. We got $185 per day for 4 years for my wife and the same benefit for me. So that’s a combined $540,200 for both of us. These benefits increase at a 5% compounded rate each year. Incidentally, it is a Ca. partnership plan which has some added bells and whistles. Total cost for both of us is $3,700 a year, quite a bit less than what vballmom is paying.</p>
<p>My policy is more than a decade old now, but we pay about $2700/year in combined premiums for $200/day each coverage + however much that’s inflated with 5% annual increases for a decade. I’m too lazy to grab the calculator. Coverage is lifetime, and I think we picked a 90 day exclusion, but it might have been 180.</p>
<p>You can save quite a bit of money if you buy as a couple.We pay approx. 2600 a year total. My parents paid 27,000 in premiums before they started claiming benefits and when they run out in 6 months, the insurance company will have paid out $230,000. Having LTC insurance has made it possible for them to spend the last years of their lives in a wonderful assisted living community.</p>
<p>We pay a bit more for a rider which allows us to transfer benefits between us as a couple. If one needs more, it can come out of the benefits of the other.</p>
<p>I don’t know offhand how much coverage we have but we got the kind that will pay for in-home care as well as out of home. There is no cap on how many days are covered, only a price cap.</p>
<p>We pay approximately $2500/year as a couple.</p>
<p>We bought an inflation-adjusted Genworth policy 5 years ago and we also bought as a couple. We pay about $3500 a year. I was 57 and H was 63 when we bought it. </p>
<p>We used an excellent broker when we were shopping for LTC policies. He was among several recommended at a federal employee retirement seminar. I researched a bit and felt this guy was best. He’s in another state but we did business via phone and e-mail. He explained all of the ins and outs of LTC insurance and gave us 4 or 5 policies to choose from, explaining the pros and cons of each one. I can’t overstate how helpful he was to us, since this is a type of insurance that we didn’t know much about. We had been planning to buy one of the plans offered to federal employees but he found us several that were less expensive and more comprehensive.</p>
<p>I cant recall exactly what we have, but we shopped it around, especially after having been though it with my dad/ I got one that let me pick my OWN case manager, that covered in home care with minimal if any wait period, and the benefit is somehow shared with my DH so if I dont use 3 years (I am guessing-- I cant recall exactly) then he gets 6 years (combined for the 2 of us). We pay about $2200/yr.</p>