What is Long-Term-Care Insurance?

by Anna Glendenning | More from this Blogger

09 Nov 2006 01:52 AM

Long term care is the kind of care needed when someone can no longer perform everyday tasks or manage activities of daily living by themselves. Long term care is not the kind of care intended to cure, or rehabilitate a person,it's the kind of care someone needs when suffering a chronic illness, debilitating injury, unrecoverable disability or end of life aging. Generally, long term care includes supervision someone might need because of a sever cognitive impairment such as Alzheimer's disease. It's care someone may need for the rest of their life.

Our parents and we ourselves may face a time where long term care is required. The need for this level of care may span for years and is expensive depending on the extent of care someone needs and location where that care is provided. Most of us will face a point in time where we have to make choice for someone who can no longer care for themselves. There are not many choices families have when deciding how to care for someone who can no longer care for themselves.

Long term care insurance is one way to help pay the expenses. Designed to protect families from catastrophic loss, it may be right choice for some people but not everyone. So how can you tell if it's right for you, or your family member?

The first step would be to talk a long term care expert who understands the regulations in the state the person who needs long term care lives. An educated and experience professional will be able to help families determine if the person needing care qualifies for Medicaid, Medicare or has the ability to pay for their care out of pocket.

Long term care insurance would be helpful if a person needs help to protect assets and lifestyle. This would be most important if only one spouse needed care, or if their were dependants living in the household. We would never want to sell mom's house if dad was still mowing the yard!

Consumer Reports (CR) did an investigation, where 47 long term care policies were reviewed. CR reports long term care insurance may be too expensive and risky for most people. As with any insurance policy the premiums must be paid in order to keep the insurance in force. If the premiums go up, people may have to drop the insurance coverage completely and risk losing everything was paid. The policy's benefits may only cover a portion of the total care costs and many policies are loaded with loopholes that prevent someone from collecting. But, most importantly since this form of insurance has only been around since the mid 1980's there's no guarantee that long-term-care insurers, many of which have weak balance sheets, will even be around 20, or 40 years from now when you actually need to collect on the policy.

Long-term-care insurance may not be a good deal, but right now it's just about the only deal we have as an option to public assistance (Medicare and Medicaid), or becoming a burden for our families. I am still investigating and not fully decided if this is insurance I might consider. At this point in time I am rather concerned about my own parents, but not sure this would be the best investment my gut feeling right now is that this insurance would primarily benefit the very wealthy, or those with dependents who could not afford to lose the family assets. However, when I review the limitations of Medicaid and Medicare I am hard-pressed to find other alternatives for someone who might need the kind of care I would not be able to provide myself.

Look for future Blogs that will hopefully help us decide if whether, despite the deficiencies, a long-term-care policy is right for you or your parents.

Other Blogs In This Series:

• What Choices Are There When Someone Can't Take Care of Themselves Any Longer?
• What is Long-Term-Care Insurance?
• Long-Term Care Insurance Options To Consider
• What to Look For Before Purchasing A Long Term Care Insurance Policy
• What Age Is Right To Purchase Long-Term Care Insurance?
• Long-Term Care Insurance Policy Features to Look For

Related Blogs:

• Would Your Family Survive Without You?
• Social Security Disability
• How To Get Information About Medicare

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Long Term Care, medicare, retirement