I smell artificially preserved meat-like products.
Sounds like you're setting up a strawman, Eagle. But everyone knows that those Jones people have their our best commissions interests at heart!
According to his math, eight of your collective four parents will need LTC coverage, correct? Or is he saying that there's a one out of two chance?
I don't know the real numbers because the statistics are even more subject to manipulation than one of TH's marketing studies. (BTW, TH, thanks for training the next generation of researchers...)
One "study" I've read is that 40% of those over 65 will need a form of convalescent care. The details disclose that the convalescence in an inpatient facility is usually only a couple weeks, and one of the studies included outpatient physical therapy as one form of convalescence. (According to that math, my eight weeks of six outpatient physical therapy appointments has contaminated someone's database as "LTC".) Long-term stays continue to be a minority of those in a full-carefacility-- I believe the fraction was 10% but it was small enough to make you want to play the odds with a healthy lifestyle. So I'm not sure that LTC insurance is merited by anyone's scary studies.
If there's only a 1:1200 need for fire insurance, then why the heck do we pay premiums? Because we usually can't afford to recover on our own from that casualty. I think that LTC should be treated the same way-- if you have more than $1M in assets then you can probably self-insure. Less than that, LTC insurance would probably improve nightly sleep. (But my spouse is pretty enthusiastic about buying me a 9mm LTC policy sold by some gonzo named Thompson.)
The federal govt is subsidizing a
long-term care insurance program for fed employees (including military) and their extended families. One of the companies is John Hancock. My father has been pretty happy with his own Hancock policy.
But I'd be highly suspicious of anyone's promises of low premiums.
Disclaimer-- although our net worth would probably merit LTC insurance, we're going naked on this one for the benefits of a healthy lifestyle. I watched my grandparents' sedentary (and dietary) habits before they entered full-care facilities, and I'll wager that martial arts students don't end up there.
Now if my spouse would just stop with the backwards-spelling pop quizzes...