What is Long Term Care Insurance
Long term care often arises because elderly people can no longer manage a number of daily living activities without help and it is envisaged this will occur for their lifetime. It comprises of support with daily living activities like washing, dressing or walking and can be provided in the person’s house, in a residential home or nursing home.
Quite often a stroke or heart attack happens out of the blue, resulting in the need for immediate long term care. Other symptoms such as Alzheimer’s disease can develop more slowly requiring increasing levels of care.
Why take out a long term care immediate needs policy? Essentially predicting life expectancy is not a precise science. When people pay for their own care they may live longer in a good care home but their money could run out. An insurance care plan policy guarantees life time payments.
The risk of a life time care insurance policy is that if a person dies early the original outlay is lost unless there is an element of insurance against premature death.
The purchase price of a care plan is based on the applicant’s life expectancy. Insurance companies take into account gender, age and medical condition by requesting a report from the persons G.P. Also they usually contact the care provider direct by telephone. If an individual’s life expectancy is deemed to be lower to chronic medical ailments, the price of the plan will be lower.
The lump sum premium is calculated by taking the shortfall between the income coming in and the cost of the care fees going out. The resulting shortfall can be accommodated by payment of a single premium to an insurance company. Automatic indexation or escalation of benefits can be included to cover annual care fee increases.
Why not suggest to the care home that they could agree to fixed 5% fee increases annually? In this way the care plan can be arranged to match these rises every year.
Even a guaranteed care plan cannot take into account increased care costs if there is a need the need to move care homes. This may be due to a requirement for nursing care or if the present care home closes for some reason or is taken over by a larger group. A regular NHS contribution is made for persons assessed as needing registered nursing care. However if the person’s health has deteriorated to such an extent that they qualify for continuing care, this is fully funded by the NHS.
One main advantage of this type of scheme over others is the tax efficiency. This is due to the fact that the benefits are paid direct to the care provider so has no impact upon the person receiving the care.
before you commence planning for long term care payments be sure you access Barbara Davies’s vital free report concerning long term care insurance policies.