How much long term care insurance?

[Wade Lippman]

What is a reasonable amount of long term care insurance to have? One year? Three years? Ten years?
Assuming of course that I want any at all. After all, my parents and in-laws went without need it.

[Stephen Tashiro]

What is a reasonable amount of long term care insurance to have? .

I don't know, but another question to add is how should the "long term care" be broken down? I had a friend whose policy covered 1 1/2 years of "skilled nursing" care (i.e. typical nursing home) and two years of "assisted living" ( no daily RN care). Before he died, he exhausted the "assisted living" policy. He spent more time in skilled nursing care than assisted living care, but Medicare covered a certain amount of his skilled nursing care. The Medicare time limit on skilled nursing care and hospital care can be "reset" if you are discharged from skilled nursing and successfully live at home for awhile.

[John Terefenko]

Not a cheap policy from any company and the longer the more expense. That is one of those tough decisions in life. good luck.

[Kev Williams]

The best insurance I found-- All of your hard assets- house, any other real estate including burial plots, cars, boats, motorhomes, burial plots, etc etc- sell, give to, or sign ownership of everything your kids, friends and relatives at least 5 years before you'll need assistance. Make sure you trust them...! Children can be given a lot of money before any inheritance taxes kick in. Just keep living your normal life until the need for outside care arises- hopefully after the 5 years. Then get on medicaid. You'll not be allowed any assets other than necessities, but you took care of that, and saved your kids's inheritance at the same time. The main catch with medicaid is, you can't have more than $2000 in cash and assets. (I think you're allowed one car but not sure). If you're collecting SS payments or any other payments, medicaid will get the Medicare portion, and you (or one of your kids with power of attorney) will have to spend all remaining money that puts you over the $2000 limit. But that's not hard to do. And fwiw, this isn't 'cheating the system' or anything, the SS administration practlcally urges you to do this...

I went thru this spiel with both my parents, and had I not done exactly the above, this house I'm living in wouldn't belong to me, or I would've had to mortgage it to pay their care bills. My dad had frontal lobe demential and spent around 16 months in the rest home. My mom joined him about 9 months later, and she spent nearly a year there before she passed--The total rest home bills were just south of 100 large. I can't imaging insurance to cover that would be much cheaper than just saving it yourself.

[Wade Lippman]

My wife's aunt did that, but she screwed up and made her gifts way to late. I was shocked when SS passed on making us return them.

Insurance should be cheaper because there is a good chance you won't ever use it. I have an agent working on pricing, but for how much?!

[Stan Calow]

Wade somewhere along the way we were told that the average nursing home stay was 5 years.

[roger wiegand]

This is a very hard question where different people in the same situation will arrive at different conclusions. it relates to your asset base-- if you have a lot or nearly nothing it's relatively easy, most of us are in between. It very much relates to your risk preferences and how much you might worry about not having it. It also relates to your health and family history; if all of your older relatives spent years in Alzheimer's care vs if they all dropped dead of heart attacks you might make different choices. I'd strongly recommend finding an attorney who specializes in elder law who can provide specific advice with regard to what will and won't work in your situation, how to go about it, and the risks and benefits of each approach. It's a very expensive decision, one I would not leave to casual advice, however excellent, on the interweb.

[Bruce Wrenn]

The one problem is when your insurer of choice decides to quit writing long term care policies. You've paid your premiums, but have to go find another underwriter to cover your needs. Not too long ago a major company dropped out of the long term care market.

[Jim Finn]

We bought a long term car policy when we lived in Maryland 12 years ago. Our policy does not have a time limit but a daily payment limit. We bought a policy that would cover about 75% of the cost for long term care at that time in Maryland. We now live in Texas and the cost of living is lower here and now that same policy will cover 100% of long term care here.