Health insurance will provide care if you are in the hospital, but what if you need long term care? Long term care is usually provided in an institution such as a nursing home or assisted living facility although some companies provide long term care in the home of the patient. Often the amount health insurance will pay for these services is very limited, if they are covered at all.
Long term care insurance can be used to fill in the gaps. Long term care is quite expensive and financially out of reach for most people. Especially if they were to be required to pay for it out of pocket. One way to offset these costs is to purchase long term care insurance. Just as with any policy the insured person pays a monthly premium for a defined amount of payout if the policy needs to be redeemed. Just as with auto insurance one hopes to never need the use of the policy. However, as with auto insurance if you do need it, you will likely need it very much.
Unfortunately the premiums for long term care insurance are quite expensive compared to other forms of insurance. Additionally, the older the insured the more the policy costs. Prices can range from two thousand dollars for a healthy forty year old to over six thousand for someone in their seventies. This indicates that a person should purchase the policy while they are young, however, most people do not want to invest that much money in insurance they may not need for forty more years. The nice thing about purchasing younger, however, is that policy premiums will not increase for you personally as you age although the benefit will be adjusted upwards with inflation. However, the policy premiums for entire classes such as by age or sex, can be increased. So for example all males aged 64 or older may receive a benefit increase at one time but there would not be an annual uptick in the premium price.
Do you need long term care insurance? If you have a large support network full of people who would be willing and able to take care of you should you become incapacitated, no. However, most people do not have such a reliable network. If you can afford the premiums, it is certainly worth the price for the guarantee you will be well cared for if you become unable to care for yourself.