Traditional Long Term Care Plans

Unlike traditional health insurance, long-term care insurance is designed to cover long-term services and supports, including personal and custodial care in a variety of settings such as your home, a community organization, or other facility.

Long-term care insurance policies reimburse policyholders a daily amount (up to a pre-selected limit) for services to assist them with activities of daily living such as bathing, dressing, oreating. You can select a range of care options and benefits that allow you to get the services you need, where you need them.

The cost of your long-term care policy is based on:

• How old you are when you buy the policy
• The maximum amount that a policy will pay per day
• The maximum number of days (years) that a policy will pay
• The maximum amount per day times the number of days determines the lifetime maximum amount that the policy will pay.
• Any optional benefits you choose, such as benefits that increase with inflation

We’re finding some people prefer some of the advantages of going the “hybrid” route for their long-term care coverage. I work with highly experienced professionals who understand the “Hybrid” market inside and out.

Our hybrid clients typically:

• Want a guarantee there will be NO rate increases to their premium, ever.
• Are very comfortable financially and are tempted to even just self-insure the risk, but realize having insurance in place may be prudent.
• Are people who have $100-150K in an easy-access fund like money market, CD, etc. – as “rainy day” money.
• Like to know they are going to use this insurance. With Hybrid, there’s a death benefit (life insurance) or the option to use the death benefit for long-term care costs instead. Hybrids work very similarly to “stand-alone” LTC products at claim time.
• May have income tax sensitivity. Benefits are income tax free.
• May have more serious health issues preventing the stand-alone companies from issuing them a policy. (We can often find a hybrid company may accept some health histories that are not acceptable by stand-alone companies.)

Other advantages of some Hybrid LTC products:

• One of our carriers still offers UNLIMITED lifetime coverage for LTC
• Though monies are re-allocated, it remains YOUR money under your control. So the money will be used either for long-term care costs, or for a death benefit (life insurance) or you can pull out your money later.