Do You Have A Long Term Care POlicy?

[mathjak107]

they are pretty strict who they take. our agent is over weight and the company he represents will not take him . i got surcharged an extra 1k a year for being prediabetic .got our renewal yesterday-no increase over last year

 

[Butterfly]

Hopefully Lon. I was declined by my state retiree benefits group plan due to certain ailments. I investigated further and found that other LTC carriers also reject applicants for those reasons. So I'm saving and investing a little more than my entire SS benefit so that I will have the funds, at least to get me into a decent facility and hopefully not for a long stay. My Medicare policy will reimburse for 120 days a year, so that's a big help. I was torn anyway about getting a LTC policy because of the caveats and the real possibility of major increases in premiums over time.

I guess I'm rolling the dice, so to speak, but I don't have a LTC policy, either.

 

[Fyrefox]

I was talked into a LTC plan in middle age. Both my parents wound up in nursing homes, because of which it was calculated that I have a one in three chance of the same fate. Three years in assisted living and then comprehensive care diminished my mother's estate significantly. While LTC insurance is wickedly expensive, it provides a hedge against you and your heirs being placed into a spend-down situation until almost nothing is left and the state assumes your care, at a place of their choosing.

 

[mathjak107]

No long term care insurance here.

I have read and it has been my observation that if you live on your own as long as possible the need for assisted living/long term care should not exceed 3-5 years, I can handle that. If I miscalculate then I will have to rely on medicaid and stumble the last mile up the hill to the cemetery on my own.

statistics mean nothing to us humans , only to insurers . if it meant something to us humans we would never have life insurance at a young age , fire insurance or auto insurance . those odds are far less than needing any kind of long term care too . as humans we have only two outcomes . things work out or they don't . someone has to be on the wrong side of the statistic and face the consequences ,. to an insurer they really don't care who it is , but if it is us we sure care and so many times we have to assume it will be us on the wrong side since someone has to . my dad spent 6 long expensive years in a snf impoverishing his wife .

we are living longer now and facing different issues then the generations of old that statistics are based on . one of the reasons insurers can't get a handle on costs when pricing premiums is when you have insurance far more is spent on care and far greater numbers are needing and getting care .


when medicaid cut their snf budget in half in 2000 they started sending folks needing lower levels of care to facility's that are not considered snf . the statistics failed to consider those folks who being healthier tended to live a lot longer in the facility and did not count in being in a snf .

 

[OneEyedDiva]

I found out since my first reply that my insurance will reimburse for 120 days in a skilled nursing facility (SNF) per BENEFIT PERIOD, not per year. A benefit period starts after 60 days of being out of a SNF. So if I go in on Jan 1st, stay until Sept 15th, come home and have to go back in on December 15th, that's a new benefit period.