Demystifying Long Term Care Insurance

Part 5: Should I Buy Long Term Care Insurance?

Written by:

James Jennings

Published:

February 1, 2019

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Inevitably, when navigating care for parents, adult children ask me whether they should purchase policies for themselves.

I’m not a financial advisor, and my answer is always “it depends.” Here are a couple things to think about: initially, policies were written liberally with benefits that were advantageous to policyholders. As LTCI companies began to pay out, the market corrected, and it’s now hard to get the same policy your parents did – and it’s certainly going to cost more if you can even get one. It’s likely that more and more individuals will need longterm care, and with Medicaid and Medicare expanding, there could be an option in the future for government-funded insurance to cover long term care. However, if premiums fit in your budget and you like the added security of a policy that helps you control where and how you age, there is still value to LTCI.

As of right now, about 10% of individuals over 65 have LTCI. Seeking and getting care always comes with stress, but LTCI removes, at the very least, the financial stress home care can put on a family. It enables families to work with premium companies, like Commonwise, where they can get real value out of their home care experience.