Long Term Care

Sad but true: Life is not forever

We try to ignore it, but the sad fact is, we age. Our bodies betray us. We become frail.

Despite knowing this, startlingly high number of people do not have Long Term Care insurance. That’s called “Denial.”

The shock comes in your 60’s or 70’s, when you realize the time for Long Term Care is rapidly approaching, and you discover how expensive it’s become.

Get it while you’re still young

Because then it costs so much less.

Very few people who purchase Long Term Care insurance ever drop that coverage. It’s the most widely held insurance policy on the market today.

There’s a reason.

Let’s say you need Long Term Care at age 85.

Now let’s say you bought your policy at age 75. Because of the actuarial tables, both your premiums and your out-of-pocket will be uncomfortably high.

But if you bought at age 55, 50 or even less, your premiums would be far lower – spread out over many more years – and your out-of-pocket costs at a bare minimum.

You’ll protect your personal assets

Long Term Care can make uninsured families go broke.

Many have had to sell homes  and valuables they’ve loved for years to cover the costs.

Others “plan” to rely on their children. But this often creates family tensions where there used to be none, and intensifies any that exist.

But Arizona is a Partnership State, which means its law has a neat trick to prevent you going broke: IF you have Long Term Care insurance, your assets are protected to the value of your long-term care policy.

How does this work?

Example 1: You have no Long Term Care Insurance. You have to pay your own money for care, all the way down to the poverty level before the State steps in to pay it for you.

Example 2: You have (say) a $250,000 Long Term Care Insurance policy. You pay your own money only for the amount of care not covered by the policy. So in this example, you keep $250,000 worth of your assets.

(Or $100,000 or $500,000 or a million – however much your policy is worth.)

New combination policies

You don’t necessarily have to buy a stand-alone long Term Care policy.

Fairly new on the market are combination policies, where Long Term Care is bundled with life insurance, or with annuities.

Worth looking into, particularly if you have health problems … these policies make it easier to qualify for your long term coverage.

Home care? Assisted living?

Think about this as you decide how much Long Term Care insurance to buy.

Currently, professional in-home care runs about $30 per hour.

This may be okay for a few hours a day. But if the need rises to 24 hours a day, that cost grows to around $700 or more.

That’s $21,000 a month!  More than $250,000 – a quarter million! – a year.

A million dollars buys you only four years.

Assisted living may or may not be your preference, but the average cost is way less. Currently it’s around $130 per day, give or take.

That’s a much more reasonable $4,000 a month. Just over $48,000 a year.

Half a million buys you 10 years.

And you can change your mind at any time, day by day.

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For a discussion about Long Term Care Insurance and answers to your questions,

Call Andy Lockridge
602-228-6992

Making good, sound sense of Long Term Care … with experience that reaches back more than 25 years.

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