As life expectancy for women rises, so does the possibility that women will spend more years dealing with infirmities or weakness due to old age. Although you may feel healthy as a horse right now, try to imagine a picture of yourself as a 70-year-old.
Your health is declining and your family has all moved away to another city for professional reasons. What’s going to happen as you age and need help from other people to care for you as your healthy gradually slide downhill?
Long-Term Care Insurance can Cost You a Lot!
Long-term care insurance, calculated over a lifetime, may possibly be the most expensive position in anyone’s insurance portfolio. What makes matters worse is that women may even have to pay more for coverage than men.
The latest trends demonstrate that rates have actually doubled for single women. In contrast, rates for single men have fallen by almost fifteen percent. Joint rates for couples have increased negligibly by about only three percent. If you select a policy with dynamic benefits to compensate for periods of inflation, the difference between the genders’ rates appears even more marked.
Just why do you think this is so? Simple: it’s a fact that women live longer than men. According to the insurance companies, this is the justification for women having to pay a higher rate due to them living longer. Also, rates will definitely rise as you move towards old age, so be prepared to pay more the longer you wait.
When is the Right Time for Long-Term Care Insurance?
By the age of fifty, you should decide whether you need long-term care insurance. If you decide that you do, start preparing yourself mentally and financially. If you are sure that you want to go ahead, do not, in any case, exceed the age of sixty-four to actually sign up for it.
The biggest benefit of long-term care insurance is that it prevents family stress in the future. When you become elderly, you will require love and assistance from your family. In most cases, thrusting the responsibility of long-term care upon an older woman’s family can become problematic for both the woman and her family.
The feeling that such responsibilities have become a burden can obscure the love and affectionate treatment which an elderly person is entitled to. This is why certified advisors recommend that highly affluent individuals sign up for long-term care insurance even though they have an immense amount of wealth at their disposal.
If you are fairly certain that you’ve got a high probability of developing a terminal disease or debilitating genetic disorder in the future, it is certainly wise to contract for long-term care insurance as early as possible.
In such cases, however, experts do advise to sign up by the age of forty, despite the current perspective that taking out long-term insurance prior to age forty-five is too early. You should also consider the fact that insurance companies nowadays require medical tests adhering to very strict guidelines.
If your health condition does not comply with their guidelines, they may not accept you at all.
Long-Term Care Insurance Policies can Differ
Be wary of the features a long-term care insurance policy offers. Not all plans may cover all your needs. This is why it’s important to research the products available on the market. Premium rates may vary based on the features a policy provides. Why pay for features you don’t require?
This is why you must determine exactly which features are right for you after you’ve had a good look around through various options. Check whether your employer perhaps offers a policy. If the answer is yes, then it will most likely not cover all your essentials.
In any case, it’s good to do this checking so that you don’t go out and purchase a policy that duplicates features that your employer could offer at a much lower price.
Long-Term Care Insurance is Not the Only Solution
If you can’t afford long-term care insurance, never fear. There are other solutions to ensure your comfort during old age.
First off, consider insuring yourself. There are life insurance policies that include long-term care features. These can even offer an extra bonus of the ability to pass these long-term care benefits on to your family members if you don’t use them yourself.
This means you won’t have to pay those high premiums your whole life long only to see the benefits go unused, which is the usual proviso with long-term care insurance in cases where the insured remains healthy up until death. Long-term care insurance is really for those people with a high level of assets and property which they know they won’t be able to make financial use during their golden years entirely.
In old age, becoming critically ill usually, means that it will be too difficult to make use of all your assets. Without a long-term care financial arrangement, you would have to depend on family or relatives, creating a situation that could become irritating for them and a bit depressing for you.
If you have a trustworthy individual who’s happy to take care of your needs in your old age and if you have enough savings, then such insurance isn’t needed. If you are not sure whether or not you have enough savings for old age, consult a financial professional to get some clarification.
