Guide to Long Term Care Insurance

There is a general rule of thumb about whether long term care insurance is worth having.

If you can afford to pay $5,000 a month for the rest of your life to stay in a nursing home, you definitely don't need long term care insurance.

If you have less than $200,000 of net worth, you probably don't need it because when you are broke, Medicaid will pick up the bill.

But -- if you are concerned about whether your children will feel obligated to pay for your care in a private facility and if you don't want that to happen, then long term care insurance can help to protect your children from having to decide whether you should become impoverished in order to qualify for Medicaid.

Another reason to consider getting long term care insurance is because it's unlikely that the government can continue to afford the escalating cost of paying for the medical and living costs of an increasing portion of the population.

As a rough rule of thumb, a nursing home will cost from $3,000 to $6,000 a month, depending on where you live. People who need to stay in a nursing home usually don't stay more than two or three years. Either they get well and can go back to their own home or they die.

But there seems to be is a growing trend toward longer term periods in an assisted living home followed by a nursing home for those who have some form of Alzheimer's or a similar incapacity.

Buying long term care insurance is probably more difficult than buying life or health insurance. It requires a lot of careful study and if you don't do some comparison shopping you could end up paying a lot more for the insurance than is necessary, or you will get a lot less benefits than you thought you were buying.

Here are information sources to help you with this decision.

AARP Research: Long Term Care Insurance

Long Term Care Insurance for Federal Employees

Washington University Guide to LTC Insurance

Avoiding Fraud When Buying Long Term Care Insurance

General Electric Financial: Long Term Care

Tax Issues for Long Term Care Insurance

Long Term Care Link

Elder Care OnLine LTC Analyzer

Copyright, 2003, Vernon K. Jacobs

Vernon Jacobs is the Editor/Publisher of The International Wealth Protection Reports, which are a collection of research reports on legal methods of asset protection and tax avoidance. Further information on this subject is available at http://www.offshorepress.com/  Jacobs is a CPA who has worked as a free lance tax and financial author/editor since 1977. Details about his credentials and experience are online at http://www.offshorepress.com/vkjcpa/  

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