When to Start Thinking About Long Term Care Coverage
Chances are, you are like the majority of individuals who have reached middle age. The primary concerns in your life are paying your monthly bills, making sure your children receive a good education, as well as the all-important goal of saving some money every month for retirement. At this point, it seems a long way off, but do not be deceived; it will be here sooner than you think. You may have heard about long-term care insurance, but you probably dismissed it with questions such as “What is it?” or “Who needs it?”.
The answer is that you do, and so does everyone else. You may reply that you already have health insurance. If you do, congratulations; it is hard to get in today’s political climate. The problem with most health insurance is that it does not cover what are known as custodial expenses. These expenses arise from custodial care, which is defined as the care needed as a result of the inability to carry out tasks relating to the following daily activities: bathing, dressing, eating, continence, toileting and transferring.
As people age, many of them find these basic tasks harder and harder to do without some form of help. The need for this type of care necessitates having long-term care insurance, which can provide the monies necessary in order to hire and maintain the proper care needed. This is made even more necessary by the fact that people are living much longer, sometimes twenty or thirty years longer past retirement. Oddly, the fondest wish of these people is to remain independent. Fortunately, they can do so if they obtain long-term care insurance.
The best time to do this is when someone is in their mid-forties, because that time of life is when insurance companies offer the lowest rates and premiums for their policies. Children can also purchase it for their aging parents. If they do not, there are two options left if something goes wrong, both of which are very unattractive. They either have to pay for the cost of their own income, or their parents have to pay for it out of their assets.
When you take into consideration the fact that this care routinely costs $75,000 and up annually, this is a tremendous burden to take on for either the children or the parents. Statistical research reveals that the average retired couple exhausts their savings in a matter of months when paying for care themselves. Even wealthy retirees find their money severely shrunk, which lives little for their children or grandchildren.
Long-term care insurance from a reputable and trustworthy insurance company can help retirees receive the care they need at a price they can afford both now and twenty or thirty years from now. Buyers must exercise the virtue of prudence when choosing a policy; each one comes with a set of circumstances and options to consider. After taking care of these, they are then free to enjoy the peace of mind that results from an effective long-term care policy.
