Extended Care Insurance
Planning For The Future With Your Health In Mind
Long-term care is something very few of us think about, but it is something that, if we live into our 70’s, 80’s and beyond, we need to prepare for financially. According to the Administration for Community Living, a part of the Department for Health and Human Services, 69% of people turning age 65 today, at some point, will need some type of extended care services, either at their home or in a facility.
And, cost of care is dramatically rising! Currently, the national average cost of care is hovering near $8,000 per month for a semi-private room in a skilled nursing facility and near $4,000 per month to live in an assisted living facility. According to Genworth, projected costs for the year 2039 for a semi-private room in a skilled nursing facility in our area will be near $13,500 per month and near $7,300 per month for an assisted living facility!
One way to off-set these costs, is to prepare now for the long-term. Long-term care insurance can give you the ability to pick how and where you receive care at your most vulnerable period of your life. It can also protect your estate from your State’s Medicaid spend down; especially, if your long-term care insurance policy participates in the state partnership program. Click here to learn about Kentucky's long-term care partnership program and how it can help in estate planning.
There are two ways to purchase long-term care insurance. One way is to purchase a stand-alone long-term care insurance policy. If you decide to purchase a stand-alone policy, you need to understand that these policies tend to periodically increase premiums over the life of the policy, and if you never use these policies you have paid in thousands of dollars in premium for nothing.
The other way to purchase a long-term care insurance policy is to purchase a life insurance policy and add a long-term care rider onto the policy. The advantages to this are the premiums never increase, you know the policy will provide a benefit even if you never use the long-term care rider and premiums are comparable to stand-alone long-term care policies.
