No more gift links; I hope someone can give one.
Seems like the root of the problem is that long term care is expensive and common enough that long term care insurance has to be expensive if it is actually able to pay the costs for those who need it.
I wonder if we should have a “gift link wish list” thread. I usually fail to use all of mine and would be happy to fulfill some requests!
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Re long term care - they have made qualifying for benefits so hard. My aunt with end stages COPD had to get almost bed ridden to qualify for paid home assistance. Her home aide stretched a bit to get her qualified. She had been paying into it for a good number of years and never came close to recouping what she paid in since she only qualified for about a year.
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Yes, we interviewed the MetLife agent when we were considering whether to by LTC insurance. We talked about activities of daily living (ADLs)—what they are and what is required to trigger qualification for benefits.
I know my aunt paid for decades for her LTC insurance but didn’t qualify for benefits until her LAST month of life, even though needed and had help from family members for many months—she wasn’t officially disabled enough.
My lung condition is pretty challenging but it won’t prevent me from being able to performing ADLs—maybe more slowly and painfully but still able to get them done.
People with heart attacks, stroke, dementia, paralysis are more likely to be able to meet criteria but appeals may be required.
I have LTC insurance and the NYT article worries me. On the other hand, we used my husband’s policy - along with hospice - as his stage 4 cancer made daily activities difficult. However, he was far from bedridden when he qualified. Maybe the hospice designation helped? He was able to remain at home till he passed, which is what he wanted. Over those last weeks, we went from help four hours a day (4-8 in the evening) to twenty-four hours a day. It was immeasurably helpful; we never paid out of pocket. As we pay our policy in full for the year, the company reimbursed me for the months not used that year.
Did we recoup what we paid in for the policy? Not even near, but it kicked in when needed. I’ve paid car insurance for over 50 years now and never had an accident. Will I ever recoup close to the amount paid in? That’s an obvious no. On a different note, I had a weather-related home disaster two years ago. My insurance company paid out more than I ever expected to need. Did I recoup what I’d paid over the years. A strong maybe.
I’ll continue to pay my LTC policy because it was a godsend when needed for my husband. However I hope to die in my sleep without ever needing LTC. (If only I should be so lucky.)
Despite our good experience with LTC, I admit the article worries me.
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For several reasons, I don’t think that’s a fair comparison. First, car insurance is compulsory. More importantly, liability is the big risk. There is a chance that an accident could result in a financial exposure vastly exceeding premiums.
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I’ll grant you that re car insurance. I just meant that I consider LTC insurance an insurance, no more/no less. I truly hope never to need it. I also hope that it comes through for me if I do. Without doubt it eased our family through a rough few weeks as my husband slowly lost more and more ability to function. Could we have managed without it? Obviously yes. However, it allowed us some sleep at night while someone sat with my husband in another room. (We had a baby monitor set up so that we could be quietly reached if in another room.) It eased my burden and those of our children who also held full time jobs and spent as much time as possible here but still …
I am in no way promoting LTC just throwing out a good experience for consideration. We had the policy since forever. A close friend (also an agent) looked over our policy at the time and told me never to miss a payment on mine. He said they don’t come like that anymore.
Maybe we just got lucky.
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I believe that the insurance industry underestimated a) people’s life expectancies (they grew); and b) the costs of help. As a consequence, they lost lots of money on the early policies that they wrote. They responded by tightening everything up a lot. The policies I saw put a cap on how much they will pay, had a reasonably high deductible, limited the scope of services they would cover and in addition, they are, like most insurance companies, making it very difficult and time consuming for people to prove they qualify for care. The latter is what a number of posters have mentioned.
When I looked, it seemed like one could self-insure in something like four years – four years of premiums was basically equal to the cap. Or maybe it was less than four years. But, there is no need for that policy.
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Yeah … my husband had one of those early policies: no cap and no deductible. I don’t remember any problem qualifying for care, etc. Tis also probably why my friend told us that they don’t make them like this anymore.
I’ll scoot from “maybe lucky” to “lucky.” The NYT’s article is definitely worrisome.
The more popular type of policy today is a “linked benefit” product that includes LTC, Return of Premium feature, and a death benefit. The death benefit is key as it ensures a benefit is paid whether you use the policy for LTC or not.
One difference between LTC and car insurance is that LTC premiums can be tax deductible because they are treated like health insurance.
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When I looked at the hybrid products (LTC and death benefits, don’t remember about return of premium feature), these products were laden with all kinds of hidden fees. That should not mean automatic rejection, but I tend to shy away from products that have hidden fees. When I looked, I think the best products were single premium products (one big payment upfront), which would have been hard for me to do in the year I was looking.
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