While life insurance is important, many individuals invest so much money in their life insurance that they fail to recognize the importance of investing in long term care insurance.  Life insurance is designed to help provide for your family and beneficiaries when you are gone.  Long term care insurance, on the other hand, is designed to pay for the cost of long term health care when you can no longer care for yourself.  The idea of needing long term care in the future may be an unpleasant thought.  Aging is simply something that people want to think about let alone plan for.  If you fail to plan your care, you might put the burden on your family or your spouse.  Learn exactly what long term health care insurance is, why you need it, when you should apply for a policy, and how much you can expect to pay for coverage.

What Exactly Is Long Term Care Insurance?

Before you buy any type of insurance, you need to understand exactly how the coverage will benefit you.  If you do not understand how a policy works or how the policy will pay you can easily think that you have no need for the insurance plan.  Easily stated, long term care insurance will help pay for living when you need assistance with any of the activities of daily living.  You might think that having long term care insurance is only necessary when you are well past retirement.  While most people hope this is the case, accidents do happen and when these accidents happen this insurance plan can make your life and the life of your family easier.

The activities of daily living are listed on every long term care plan.  While some plans differ, most require that you need daily assistance with at least 2 of the following activities for your plan to start paying for the cost of care.  The activities are as follows:

• Eating
• Transferring in and out of bed
• Bathing
• Dressing
• Using the Restroom

Just imagine life if you have difficulty doing any of these things.  While you will try to cope at first, there will come a point where you will need professional help from in-home nurses.  You do not have to look at this insurance plan life an insurance plan designed for the elderly.  A number of different things can happen that will devastate your life.  Some of these events include:

• Stroke
• Vehicle accident
• Rheumatoid arthritis
• Diabetes

Your policy will pay for care in your home or care in a long term or assisted living facility.  You can select a daily limit and a lifetime limit on the policy based on how much you can afford to pay in premiums.

How Much Can You Expect to Pay For Long Term Care Insurance?

Now that you understand what long term care insurance will cover, you might wonder just how much you can expect to pay for your coverage.  This is a legitimate question and long term care insurance rates will vary significantly depending on your age, the amount of cover you request, and the insurance company you are buying from.  When you buy your policy young, your premiums will be based on your age at the time of application.  This means that you will pay low rates even when you are nearing retirement.  In 2010, the average long term care insurance cost was reported at $2207 per year.  The 40 year old will generally pay around $900 for coverage.  The 65 year old may pay between $2500 and $2900 per year if they are in good health.  As you can see, acting young will save you money each year.

When to Apply For Your Policy

If you want to get long term care insurance while it is still affordable for you you should apply while you are young and healthy.  Like life insurance companies, long term care insurance companies will check your medical history and may require medical exams to approve you for coverage.  If you have a medical condition, it can either increase your premiums or disqualify you for coverage.  In some cases, you can be blacklisted for coverage entirely.  This is why it is best to get Long Term Care insurance now so you do not have to worry about it later.

Why Do You Really Need Coverage?

If your family has lived healthy up until the day they died you might wonder why you need coverage.  In the past, people were not living as long.  Life expectancy ranges have increased and this is good for us.  On the other hand, people are living longer with diseases and medical conditions.  This means that you may live longer, but you might need help doing it.  The last thing you want to do is burden your adult children to care for you in your old age.  Studies show that when adult children care for their parents, it affects their relationships with each other and the child’s relationship with their own spouse and children.

There are a number of reasons why you need to purchase long term care insurance.  You cannot rely on Medicare to pay for quality care.  If you want real quality care in a comfortable environment, you are going to have to pay for it.  Do not spend all of the money you have saved on your care and spend a fraction of the cost on insurance.

 

These sites offer competitive long term care insurance rates:

4FreeQuotes.com – Compare Long Term Care Quotes from different insurance companies

InsureMe.com – Long Term Care Insurance Quotes in all 50 States

InsuranceFinder.com – Get quoted by multiple agents and brokers

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