Long-term care insurance provides essential benefits to help individuals prepare for future extended care needs. Key advantages include:

• Financial Protection: This coverage covers costs that can quickly deplete savings or retirement funds, ensuring necessary care without exhausting personal resources.
  
• Choice and Flexibility: This allows individuals to choose their preferred care type and location, whether at home, in assisted living, or in a nursing home, maintaining dignity and control.
  
• Access to Quality Care: Grants access to higher-quality care providers and services that might otherwise be unaffordable.
  
• Asset Preservation: Protects assets like homes from being depleted by care expenses, allowing them to be passed on to future generations.
  
• Caregiver Support: Provides financial assistance for caregiver services, relieving family members of the full-time care burden.
  
• Tax Advantages: Premiums may be tax-deductible depending on the policy and jurisdiction.
  
• Independence: Helps maintain independence by covering long-term care costs.

Approximately 70% of Americans aged 65 and older will require long-term care at some point in their lives.

Available Options

• Health Insurance and Social Security: Do not cover long-term care expenses.
  
• Medicare: May cover a portion of costs, but only up to 100 days.
  
• Medicaid: Covers expenses for individuals with assets of $2,000 or less (varies by state); care may be limited to a nursing home.
  
• Adult Children: Relying on adult children can impose significant financial, physical, and emotional burdens.
  
• Out-of-Pocket (Self-Insure): Using income and savings or selling assets can be inefficient, considering the median annual cost for a private nursing home room is $87,600*.

Long-term care coverage is a strategic way to protect yourself and your assets from the potentially devastating costs of long-term care.

_{*U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, LongTermCare.gov. Jan 2017}

_{*Cost of Care Survey, Genworth Financial, March 2014.}