All articles
Insurance
Do We Really Need Long-Term Care Insurance?
6 min readBy Pauline Githara
An honest look at who benefits from LTC insurance, who doesn’t, and the hybrid options most families overlook.
Long-term care is the one cost most retirement plans forget to plan for. About 70% of people over 65 will need some form of long-term care. The bill can erase a lifetime of saving.
Three ways to plan for LTC - Traditional LTC insurance. Use-it-or-lose-it, but potentially the most protection per dollar. - Hybrid life/LTC or annuity/LTC. Your premium always produces a benefit — care during life, or a death benefit to your heirs. - Self-insuring. Setting aside earmarked assets you’d only tap for care.
Who should seriously consider coverage - Couples with $500K–$2M in assets where a long care event would upend the survivor’s plan. - Singles with no one to coordinate unpaid caregiving. - Families where longevity runs in at least one bloodline.
Who can often self-insure - High-net-worth households with dedicated care assets. - Very-low-asset households who would rely on Medicaid eventually.
The conversation worth having Long-term care is as much a family conversation as a financial one. Who would help? Where? For how long? Planning the money without planning the people leaves the hardest part undone.
Happy to walk through the options with you — no agenda.
Questions on this topic?
Happy to talk through your specific situation. First calls are free.