Long-term care insurance offers multiple benefits

For many individuals in California, the day may come when their health fails and they can no longer care for themselves. Unfortunately, having enough money set aside for covering long\-term care costs can be difficult. This is where long-term care insurance comes in.

Around 70 percent of individuals who get to age 65 are going to need some long-term care during their lives. The focus of long-term care not only is on medical care but also on daily-living activities. Assistance may be in the form of taking medications, going to the bathroom and doing housework, for example.

Unless someone is wealthy on his or her own, he or she may find it challenging to afford a home health aide or round the clock care in a nursing home or assisted living facility. Home health aide costs can easily reach upwards of $50,000 per year. Meanwhile, having a room in a nursing home that is semi-private may cost $100,000 or more.

The benefit of long-term care insurance is that it can prevent people from spending the money they might have saved up to care for a spouse or that they might wanted to leave for their children. The younger people are when they buy this type of insurance in the state of California, the lower their premiums may be. However, fully understanding a policy can be challenging when one is ready to buy or use it. An applied understanding of the law may help people to purchase or use such a policy with the confidence that it will meet their needs long term.

Source: lehighvalleylive.com, “How to prevent long-term care plans from becoming a crisis“, John Best, Nov. 20, 2016