A recent study shows that policies bought before retiring are more affordable.
New long term care insurance research is showing that almost 40 percent of the survey’s respondents made payments of less than $1,499 per year, helping to dispel the myth that this coverage must be expensive.
There are many ways to save on this type of policy in order to make it more affordable.
According to the American Association for Long Term Care Insurance executive director, Jesse Slome, “One of the biggest misconceptions is that long term care insurance is costly, a result of some well meaning national studies that report national industry averages.” This was a part of Slome’s address to consumers in which he provided a number of ways in which to save on coverage.
Slome explained that the primary factor increasing long term care insurance cost is age.
Therefore, he said, those who apply when they are younger won’t see the same costs as individuals who are in their seventies, as there are expenses that simply don’t apply to them. He also pointed out that the only way to truly find out what you would pay for coverage is to “request comparison quotes for your specific age and health.”
Industry data from 2011 has shown that 39.7 percent of long term care insurance shoppers under the age of 61 were paying $1,499 or less per year in premiums for their coverage. Slome noted that among policyholders, 17 percent were paying even less than $1,000 annually. This factors out to less than $20 per week, or about the cost of a daily premium coffee.
When this cost is compared to the hundreds of thousands of dollars in benefits that are received by some policyholders on their claims, this can be an exceptionally intelligent part of a financial strategy.
Equally, though, while there were some policyholders that maintained very low premiums, there was also a small segment – 16.7 percent – that stated that their annual premiums were over $3,000 for their coverage.
In this light, it was pointed out that it is very important to compare long term care insurance coverage from one insurer to the next, as there is a great deal of range in prices simply based on the company offering the policy. Coverage that is virtually identical could be nearly twice as expensive if you choose the wrong carrier.
