Long term care insurance?

[motley]

Anyone have this? I looked into it but holy #### it's expensive. Granted long term health care is too, I guess you can't win. They say 50s is the "sweet spot" cost-wise of when to get into it, but I'm on the fence.

 

[pb4uski]

You should read the paper at this link that a forum member recently posted.

https://www.early-retirement.org/forums/f28/long-term-care-insurance-paper-106145.html

 

[motley]

Will do thanks!

 

[Al in Ohio]

Anyone have this? I looked into it but holy #### it's expensive. Granted long term health care is too, I guess you can't win. They say 50s is the "sweet spot" cost-wise of when to get into it, but I'm on the fence.

Who is “they”? Was it the insurance salesman? Sweet spot for him probably because if you start paying that early you’ll be helping make his boat payments for 30-40 years before you might actually need it.

 

[Golden sunsets]

Who is “they”? Was it the insurance salesman? Sweet spot for him probably because if you start paying that early you’ll be helping make his boat payments for 30-40 years before you might actually need it.

There is some advantage to not postponing too long, because as we age we develop health issues that might result in a denial of coverage at the point that one applies. I had always heard that 60 was the swet spot. The "they" in my case is various articles I read as we were researching LTC.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I was paying $20/month through my late 20s, then my 30s and 40s; premiums only recently went up to about $50/month. Starting that early, I may be putting in more than I could get out of it, but even at that young age I could afford those premiums and still save a lot towards retirement, so I decided to do it rather than try to build a bigger nest egg but risk a big chunk of it. I paid extra for inflation protection (5% cumulative annual increase in benefits), which I knew would work to my benefit over many years.

 

[donheff]

I bought into the Federal LTC program when it started about 18 years ago. DW and I bought into it purely as insurance. We want to leave a nice estate to our kids and didn't want LTC eating it away. We purchased high benefit policies with no lifetime limit and 5%/year inflation risers. After a few years of experience the insurer was struggling because they had misjudged the costs they would pay out. OPM ended up switching to John Hancock and renegotiating the whole program - benefits were reduced and premiums raised. We elected a somewhat lesser benefit package with slightly higher premiums. Under the new policy we are eligible for $300/day (in 2020), no lifetime limit, with a 2.65% annual inflation increase in benefits. Care can be in a facility or in home. There have been no changes in many years now and I haven't heard rumblings of problems so I am keeping my fingers crossed.

For the past few years I have been back and forth second guessing my choice. The premiums are pretty high and we have a large enough portfolio to self insure. Had we invested the premiums for 18 years we would already have a nice LTC fund. On the other hand, s**t happens and LTC costs can be huge. As I reported in the other thread mentioned above, s**t happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I got diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. The subjective NPV of my policy suddenly went way up. There is now a very good chance that I will need LTC assistance in 10 or 15 years, possibly for a good period of time. I may start a PD thread to see if others here have experience with it.

By the way, the fund I could have built up by investing the premiums would get eaten up in a little over a year's worth of full LTC payments.
That is now a very real possibility.

 

[motley]

Who is “they”? Was it the insurance salesman? Sweet spot for him probably because if you start paying that early you’ll be helping make his boat payments for 30-40 years before you might actually need it.

No, pretty much every article I read on the subject. I'd hardly call 50s "early." And the later you wait, the more expensive it gets...far more so if you start having health issues (which start cropping up more as you get older too).

I was paying $20/month through my late 20s, then my 30s and 40s; premiums only recently went up to about $50/month. Starting that early, I may be putting in more than I could get out of it, but even at that young age I could afford those premiums and still save a lot towards retirement, so I decided to do it rather than try to build a bigger nest egg but risk a big chunk of it. I paid extra for inflation protection (5% cumulative annual increase in benefits), which I knew would work to my benefit over many years.

That sounds insanely cheap. What company?

For the past few years I have been back and forth second guessing my choice. The premiums are pretty high and we have a large enough portfolio to self insure. Had we invested the premiums for 18 years we would already have a nice LTC fund. On the other hand, s**t happens and LTC costs can be huge. As I reported in the other thread mentioned above, s**t happened to me a couple of weeks ago when I got diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease. The subjective NPV of my policy suddenly went way up. There is now a very good chance that I will need LTC assistance in 10 or 15 years, possibly for a good period of time. I may start a PD thread to see if others here have experience with it.

By the way, the fund I could have built up by investing the premiums would get eaten up in a little over a year's worth of full LTC payments.
That is now a very real possibility.

I'm sorry for your diagnosis and wish you the best. And you make a good point.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

That sounds insanely cheap. What company?

My policy is with Unum Provident; they first offered it in 2008 through my employer. And I thought it was cheap even back then, that's why I decided to sign up even though I was in my late 20s!