Guide To Buying Long Term Care Insurance
Shopping for long term care insurance cant be accomplished in two to five hours
. This is not a typical insurance that you can just forget and replace it with other coverage. Getting long term care insurance entails time and proper planning to ensure that youll get good services once you reach retirement years or any time you need it most.You should be money-wise.Assess your needs. The types of long term care services differ from one provider to another. What others need does not necessarily reflect what you also need. You have to weigh in some factors such as your age, medical condition, and financial stability before going straight to the insurer. Ignorance kills. You should always research about long term care insurance to avoid blunder and to help you organize everything you will need. Try to canvass the costs of long term care costs in your area. You can get average costs through Metlifes survey of nursing home and assisted living facilities. Once you know the average costs of long term care in your area, you have clearer view on how you should finance the care.
Always consider policies that offer wide range of care such as nursing home care, assisted living, and home care. Most people prefer home care, but experts dont recommend buying home care policies alone. Home care does not provide intensive care that chronically ill and disabled individuals need. Home care is limited to daily living activities such as walking, bathing, toileting, eating, and etc. It is advisable to get coverage that offer more than just daily living activities, because as you age you become frail and vulnerable to sickness that require series of treatments and supervision.
Protect yourself against the creeping costs in the future. Getting additional features or riders will significantly increase your premiums, but the protection it can give pays off. Inflation protection is one of the best LTC insurance riders that increases your premiums to cope with the inflation rate but the amount of premium is not affected. This is beneficial especially for nursing home care coverage whose rates are creeping faster than inflation rate.
Buy LTC insurance only from a reputable and established company with high financial strength rating and experience. You may check the ratings from agency like A.M. Best and Standard and Poors. Only commit to an established company with long years of experience because they have wider market reach and have enough reserves for future claims.
Know how long term care insurance works. The type of insurance policy usually depends on the persons medical record. Many companies refuse applicants with pre-exisiting conditions such as dementia, Alzheimers, multiple sclerosis, Parkinsons disease, and stroke.
Before purchasing a plan, make sure you have read and understand everything stated in the policy. The insurer should explain what are covered under the policy, the limitations, the policy benefits, and exclusions. The National Association of Insurance Commissioners recommend policies with the following features:
One year coverage for home health care which includes intermediate and custodial care
Additional coverage for patients with Alzheimers
The policy must be renewable and cannot be cancelled
The policy can be returned within 30 days or free-look period
There should be no requirement that a person should be hospitalized first before qualifying for LTCi coverage.
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