Today NPR had a good story entitled “Boomers Reluctant over Long-Term Care Insurance” where a professor at the University of Maine did a study on long-term care insurance.  In the study,  Prof. Joel Gold wanted to find out which consumers, if any, had a statistical chance of “beating the system” in buying long term care.

In the study, Gold used an hourly rate of $25 for home care, and an annual rate of $100,000 for nursing homes.  We think these values are a bit high for most regions, but plan appropriately for your region.

What Gold found was that women of all ages could benefit from having a long-term care policy while men benefited only if middle-aged or below.  Keep in mind that each individual case is of course different and it is highly possible that any single person could use a large chunk of long term care costs at any given point in their life.  The point is, women should always consider an LTC insurance policy, while men should consider their family background and financial status before committing.