The 5 Hows to designing a long-term care plan

What to Look for when you decide to transfer your LTC risk to an insurance company.
Once you’ve determined that the cost of an LTC insurance policy makes sense for your family’s protection, you will face another set of choices about the benefits and features you want your plan to include.  Here are the five key elements to designing a Long Term Care policy.

1. How to pick which Insurance Carrier?
   When investigating which company you want to be sure to select a top-rated financially secure carrier that is experienced in offering LTC insurance for at least 10 years.  After all, the odds are that it may be 20 years or more before you need benefits.
2. How much Daily and Monthly Benefit?
   Policies allow you to choose how much maximum benefit will be paid for each day or month that LTC is needed.  You should look for a benefit close to the actual average cost of LTC in your area.  Co-insuring a portion of this cost will significantly lower the premiums.
3. How many years do I want the coverage to last?
   Durations of coverage are typically purchased in year periods and range from 2 years to unlimited or lifetime.  The longer a policy pays, the more expensive it will be, so keep the national average LTC stay – three (3) years – in mind.
4. How long do I want to wait before the benefit payments start?
   You can keep your cost of coverage more affordable with a waiting period –similar to a deductible- before benefits start. A typical range of waiting periods is 20-100 days.
5. How current do I want the policy to be?
   The cost of everything goes up and benefits you select today should be designed to keep pace with the cost of care.