Can you claim membership to a bigger group? Veteran? Professional license? Volunteer firefighter? Etc.
They usually have a lower price.
Sounds like you’re trying to buy the insurance about the time the accident happens.
Good luck with that.
Have paid into ;long term care for 30 years Keeps going up if you want the inflation ryder. I have it through my employer with a few hundred thousand others. I have various problems and my wife is ten years younger. Afraid not to keep paying.
“they want your money as long as you are young enough with no pre-existing conditions.”
Yep. Why wouldn’t they? They probably lose money on Johnny-come-latelies who develop heath conditions in their 60s/70s and then all of a sudden want long term health insurance. Can’t say I blame them.
I have been paying in to a John Hancock long term care plan for many years. Cost is based on a statistics and cost model. The premiums go up each year as I age. I think mine pays $100/day. By the time I need it it will likely just cover part of what I need but it is something.
I purchased LTC insurance for self and wife when in early 60s; am now 78. Premiums go up every two years I would guess 5-8%. I have read articles suggesting LTC has been a disappointing product for the industry and participant pool is decreasing. Having said that, it can help preserve an estate if nursing home or home health becomes necessary..as it has for a cousin and her husband that sing the praises of LTC insurance. I have friends that have bought $250-500,000 life policies in their late 40’s as an alternative to LTC.
My best friend passed away in November, and she had been paying into long-term care insurance (not sure what company) for around 20 years. The cancer had her withering away for a year, and she should’ve been in a care facility for at least the last three months, but she passed at home. When trying to arrange for long-term care through the policy, they threw up roadblocks every step of the way, and she never was able to use it. Thousands of dollars down the toilet.
DH and I had thought about signing up about 15 years ago, but didn’t. Now, just from my friend’s experience, it seems like a quasi-scam.
My Mom is 77 and has a forever plan with LOTS of money avail per month...10k? or more. OUrs is at 6k/mo and increasing.
I purhased a BCBS Long Term Plan on 2008 from my insurance broker. I pay $253.97 quarterly. The price hasn’t raised one cent. I work in a nursing/rehab facility - LT insurance is great.
Change your perspective to that of the provider and then your search might have better results.
I’m 62 and just bought a $250,000 term life insurance policy. One benefit I was unaware of was a long term care clause. If I take a doctor certified one way trip into long term care the death benefit can be utilized in certain situations to pay for the care.
I began to negotiate with Mass Mutual for LTC policy when I turned 65. They had insurance “nurses” call me and gave me a mental evaluation over the telephone which I failed (they were from Massachusetts and liberals). They also scrutinized my past medical history and turned me down because my history and family were a “risk”. I’m with minimal problems and wonder how anyone with any problems at all can get LTC insurance.
Jim Gallogly (415) 729-1770
Mr RooRoo and I have LTC policies with Prudential, have had the policies since our early 40’s. The idea is to sign up in your 40’s when you’re young and healthy, not likely to have chronic diseases like rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, heart disease. This will keep the premiums as low as possible.
When we started LTC insurance about 20 years ago the premiums were about $45 per month per person. Currently we pay about $105 per month per person. The current benefit is $200 per day per person. We can use the benefit to pay for nursing home care or at home skilled nursing care.
In Arizona the average cost of nursing home care for a private room is $6500 per month. In New York State the average cost of a semi- private nursing home room is $10,830 per month.
I strongly recommend having LTC insurance. You can build up a nice retirement nest egg, but it could be greatly depleted or wiped out by nursing home care costs. Medicare DOES NOT pay for nursing home care.
Happiness is a warm gun.............
Yes; don’t. Employer offered maybe ok for that purpose (If stricken ill while in employment) but otherwise it’s a rigged game without even the ‘fun’ of Vegas ... you’re betting that you’ll have a long life suffering from an incurable yet debilitating malady. Woot.
If you are young, you are better off buying small cap stocks, instead of paying premiums. Each year, you benefit and your premiums are reverse. Your payments decrease, while insurance premiums increase.
Next, you own the asset, not others. This explains why premiums keep rising. It is to bump off older higher risk folks.
Next, insurance pools are with generally UNHEALTHY people, poor eating, & poor habits. That is a bad investment. You are paying for other people’s irresponsibly.
Next, studies show the more insurance you have, the worse your own habits. You take bigger dangers.
Next, the less insurance you have, the better you take care of yourself.
Also, catastrophic is the only thing to insure against. But younger people need it less.
“Long term care” = people fulfilling needs of personal hygiene and daily needs for those who are incapable.
Ain’t gonna be me.
The interesting thing about LTC is that if you end up going to a nursing home to die, you will likely not be there very long. There have been huge changes in hospice care and medically assisted suicide (something I don't like).
I watched my mother move my father to a nursing home and he only lasted a little over a week before he died. My mother on the other hand lasted a little less than two years. My mom burned through all of her assets and in settling the estate I learned about Medicaid claw-back.
For some facts you should look at the statistics on how long people who are sent to nursing homes typically live. In this country we typically send people away to die. Kind of like Eskimo elderly being sent out on the ice pack. The elderly just die out of sight and out of mind. Not a good situation nor one that should be encouraged.
https://www.geripal.org/2010/08/length-of-stay-in-nursing-homes-at-end.html
Most people live less than 6 months after entering a nursing home. The vast majority less than 2 years from the above study. Even though nursing home care is expensive, if you are not going to get better and you are terminal hospice is much less expensive. It is the dementia patients whose story will break your heart.
In running retirement scenarios our financial advisors (yes more than one from different companies) concluded that we would likely die with well over a million in assets. We were told that we can self finance our long term care as probably we it will be less than the remaining money in our retirement accounts at our death.
To safeguard things we have various medical directives, medical powers of attorney, special trusts to protect assets, etc. If you self-finance you need a good attorney skilled in elder law and some frank conversations with your children and spouse about pulling the plug when quality of life fades or at least allowing you that option.
Another good article is here.
Good luck
“Most of the plans seem to be cut from the same cloth....they want your money as long as you are young enough with no pre-existing conditions.”
My sister had long term care insurance in her fifties. Each year the premium went up and it was easy to calculate that by her eighties it would be thousands per year. My family lives into their nineties and my mother is 101. None of them needed long term care until they were in their nineties. At which point her policy premium would have been like hiring a full time nurse. In long term costs she would have paid many times over for her care. An honest insurance agent told her, yes, that’s how it works. So, the answer is, unless something happens to you in your fifties you will lose out. If you have the money to pay the policy, you have the money to hire your own care giver.
They are only good for people who already have a lot of money. The reason is that the plans and projections the industry made when they started introducing these plans in the 90s were shot all to hell by the BushObama recession; premiums have skyrocketed beyond the ability of most middle and lower-middle income folks to afford; and there is no telling how high they will continue to go as the Baby Boomers are now entering serious old age.