I'm familiar with long term care insurance because my husband, sister and b-i-l, and parents have it. You have to be relatively healthy, but certain conditions will disqualify you (or force you to buy a policy from a company that is for a higher-risk group and more costly). One example of a condition that will put you in a higher risk group is diabetes, or having had a heart attack. You can get it, though, if you have conditions like high blood pressure or high cholesterol. Generally, the younger and healthier you are, the lower your premiums will be.
The best insurance that my relatives found, by far, was from GE Financial -- they have been in the business longer than any other company. I think that division goes by a different name now -- Genworth, or something like that? My parents shopped around a lot and even talked to assisted living facility managers to get their opinion.
Shopping policies from multiple companies is like comparing apples and oranges -- they all have different features. What you want is a premium that stays flat for the rest of your life and covers you for a minimum amount per day (that amount depends on what nursing home costs are where you live) with an automatic coverage increase of the daily benefit of 3% or so every year to cover cost of living increases.
To give you an idea, my sister is 49 years old and bought a policy 2 years ago. Her policy is between $1300 and $1400 per year -- she is healthy, overweight but not obese, so her risk is lower and her premium reflects that. Her yearly premium will never increase. Should she need it, she will get what started out as up to $150 per day, but that payout increases every year by 3% (so if she were to need it today, here daily payment, 2 years later, is now up to $159.13). It will cover in-home care if she prefers. (Imagine that -- being able to stay in your own home). If she gets ill and her long term care coverage kicks in, then the yearly premium ($1300) is waived while the coverage is in effect -- indefinitely. The policy will cover he for as long as she needs it. You can get variations, such as only 2 years instead of unlimited, and the cost is less. The older you are when you buy the insurance, the more your yearly premium will be.
Long term care insurance is something to be seriously considered if you have assets to protect (unless you are very wealthy, and you've got enough money to bear that risk). Without protection, long term care costs can drastically draw down someone's assets. Personally, I would rather be covered and not see everything that I've saved go towards a nursing home. I want to give it to whomever or whatever I choose.
If you take my sister's cost for 37 years (until she's 85), that $1300 per year amounts to $48,100 -- except there's no telling what one year in a nursing home will cost 37 years from now. That's about the cost of one year in a decent nursing home. (It's much higher in some localities, and lower at the poorly run facilities but you DON"T want to end up at one of those). Hopefully we all croak in our sleep when were old but still relatively healthy and don't ever have to deal with these issues, but we don't get any control over that!
Thanks for the info! I guess the bottom line is one should get it when they are younger. I'll tell you tho, I wonder what nursing home care will even be like in 30 years!
Hopefully none of us will need it (my Mom died in 2000 and my Dad was able to care for her at home while she was ill) and my inlaws both died this January, and my FIL had been able to take care of my MIL at home (she had alzheimers and was bedridden for about 6 years). Neither had nursing home care.
My Dad is in his 80s, but should he need care he will likely come live with my brother or I, hopefully he will not end up with something that cannot be cared for at home (I realize there are those conditions--however, I think alot of people could be cared for by family but are not for one reason or another).
susie