Retirement might be this year, next year, or in 20 years, but it’s never too early or too late (although you got to be some-what healthy to qualify) to plan for long term care. What we at LTCtree are seeing in the long term care (LTC) insurance market, is younger and younger people are buying the coverage now. We sell policies in all 50 States and the median age for buying LTC insurance this year so far is 52 and last year it was 55. When I began in the 90′s the average age for buying LTC insurance was 67. What’s causing this dramatic trend? The Baby-boomers are now taking care of their parents and do not what to be a burden on their kids. This is the most common driving force for this increasing wave of people planning for LTC with this insurance.
The age in which you buy long term care insurance is important in determining what company you should look at. Genworth Financial is the former GE Financial and have more policy holders than any other company. Married people around 40-55 tend to have better rates with Genworth in most States; John Hancock has great rates 50-70 and especially for single folks over their competition. Allianz Life out of Minnesota, has competitive rates 45+, but especially for older people 70+ because they have 5 rates classes to put people in which means if a person does not have perfect health, Allianz might be able to insure the person because of their large underwriting rates classes. Genworth has a very narrow underwriting rate class with just two and John Hancock has 4 rate classes.
MetLife and Prudential are hit or miss and I’ve seen them be competitive in about 15% of cases, but you must get quotes from them as well as the three mentioned above just to make sure there is not a better deal for you.
At LTCtree we work with all of these long term care insurance companies and more so take a few minutes and simply fill in this form so you can begin taking control of your retirement by learning your options. Long term care insurance is not for everyone, but it’s just smart financial planning to at least check.
