Merry Christmas and Happy Hanukkah to all on this holiday…after the dust settled from present opening this morning I picked up a copy of Kiplinger’s December magazine and there was a great article on long term care insurance.  The author of the article is spot on with their cost savings thinking.  LTC Tree typically advises our clients that one of the most important thing to consider when building your long term care insurance plan is to keep your premium costs down as much as possible but at the same time have an appropriate amount of insurance.  The Kiplinger’s article says to keep your costs down to buy a 3 to 5 year plan which will be much more reasonable than unlimited benefit plans and still insurance above the average claim on a long term care policy.  An LTC Tree claims study found that 92% of all LTC claims lasted for 3 years or less.  Genworth Financial which have the most policies sold and the most claims against said that their average claim was 2.5 years.

The Kiplinger’s long term care insurance article says that sure there is a chance you might need long term care insurance beyond the average for conditions such as Alzheimer’s, but about 25 States and growing have developed a Long Term Care Insurance Partnership program.  Most of the States will match dollar for dollar the amount of long term care insurance benefits that were paid out in the event you exhaust your policy.  For example, say your policy paid out $500,000 in benefits and your policy was exhausted, many States will let you exclude $500,000 of your assets from the Medicaid spend down requirements.  The method each State will benefit your long term care insurance plan will vary slightly from State to State, so be sure to check with your state specific insurance commissioner for the details.

Finding the balance between insurance and investing (too much insurance vs. too little) is paramount.  There is a chance like your auto or home owners insurance you might not use your long term care insurance plan, so we at LTC Tree really try and dig in with our clients to help them scale back their benefits in most cases to keep their cost down but at the same time have an appropriate amount of coverage for their hard earned dollar.  If you’d like to see if long term care insurance might be a good fit for your financial situation take a minute to simply fill in this form and we’ll mail you out quotes and info from the top carriers.  Thanks for reading our long term care insurance blog and Happy New Years!