Experts say three to five years' worth of coverage is a good bet. On average, women need services longer than men — 3.7 years for women and 2.2 years for men. Women accounted for nearly two-thirds of all long-term care insurance claims paid in 2018, according to AALTCI.
The short answer is it really depends on your income level. Long term care policies have quite expensive premium costs, making them unappealing to medicaid qualifying individuals (who may have a subsidized cost of care), and financially inefficient for those wealthy enough to self insure.
Suze recommends people only buy an LTC policy today, if they can easily continue to pay the premium if it increases by 40 percent over the coming years. ... LTC coverage only pays a benefit to people who need home health care, nursing home, or another form of covered long-term care.
With long-term-care insurance the costs are high, the risks are low, and the benefits are low, but with, for instance, fire insurance, the costs are low, the risks are low and the benefits are high.”
The optimal age to shop for a long-term care policy, assuming you're still in good health and eligible for coverage, is between 60 and 65, financial advisers say. Couples might take a look five years earlier.
Dave suggests waiting until age 60 to buy long-term care insurance because the likelihood of your filing a claim before then is slim. ... Get this—about 95% of long-term care claims are filed for people older than age 70, with most new claims starting after age 85.
6 alternatives to long-term care insurance worth considering
Suze Orman recommends that you stick to term life insurance to cover your needs. Term life insurance lasts only for a specific period of time, usually 10 to 35 years, while whole or universal life insurance covers you for your entire life.
AARP endorses certain long-term care insurance policies underwritten by New York Life. These policies are specially marketed to AARP members. AARP long-term care insurance policies include traditional, stand-alone policies, and hybrid policies (which combine life insurance with long-term care benefits).
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Cost of Long-term Care Insurance
For instance, a 55-year-old couple can expect to pay about $2,500 per year in annual premiums for long-term care insurance. A 60-year-old couple would pay $3,500, but by 65 it would cost $7,000 and by 70 it would likely cost $14,000 or more per year.
There are no age requirements to purchase long term care insurance. While insurance companies may recommend an individual purchase the policy as young as 40 years old, Consumer Reports recommends waiting until the age of 60. Waiting too long to buy a policy can result in prohibitively expensive premiums.
Meaning, if you never use the benefits or decide to cancel the policy down the road, you no longer receive the care and you won't get the money you paid in, either. The only way to get back what you paid for but didn't use is with a long-term care insurance hybrid policy.
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