Federal Long Term Care insurance?

[Anonymous]

I'm a Fed, age 52, looking at early retirement (separation) in a couple of years. My financial planner has been urging me to sign up for Long-term Care insurance (FLTCIP) - he thinks it' a good value. When I last looked at the program a few years ago, it had experienced significant premium increases and there was no guarantee that additional premium increases wouldn't be forthcoming. At that time I elected to self-insure, and build a $300K cushion into my financial planning to allow end-of-life expenses for at least a few years. But now I'm wondering if I should sign up after all. Does anyone have recent experience with the program & do you think it's a good value compared to self-insuring?

[Anonymous]

Frankly, I have no idea but I have carried the insurance (version 2.0 I believe) for both DH and me for some time and will continue to do even though we are easily self-insured using your self-insurance calculation of $300,000.

DH and I are ultraconservative when it comes to insurance. For example, we each carry family insurance. IMO dual insuring really only pays off if you are hit with a family hospitalization. We have been and because we ended up being responsible for practically none of the expenses, it has more than paid off.

[Anonymous]

Forgot to add that I work with someone who is something of an insurance expert (used to work at an insurance company). She has carried long-term health insurance since her thirties and absolutely thinks people should get FLTC insurance regardless of age (young people can get hit by a disabling car accident, for example).

[Anonymous]

Not worth the money

[Anonymous]

Our family planner said it was fine to self insure. He did not recommend the fed insurance due to the large increases. He recommended 1 year coverage if we decided to do it. It covers a large percentage of people's needs.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our family planner said it was fine to self insure. He did not recommend the fed insurance due to the large increases. He recommended 1 year coverage if we decided to do it. It covers a large percentage of people's needs.

financial planner/not financial.

[Anonymous]

Its a gamble either way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, I have no idea but I have carried the insurance (version 2.0 I believe) for both DH and me for some time and will continue to do even though we are easily self-insured using your self-insurance calculation of $300,000.

DH and I are ultraconservative when it comes to insurance. For example, we each carry family insurance. IMO dual insuring really only pays off if you are hit with a family hospitalization. We have been and because we ended up being responsible for practically none of the expenses, it has more than paid off.

What is ‘family insurance’?

[Anonymous]

I have it. It is expensive, and I worry that if I can't keep it up forever, it will all be for naught.

Having said that, I saw it as a way to unburden my child (who might have had to support my expensive care if...like my mother, I was bed-ridden for years before dying.) At least with the Federal plan, they need some type of permission/approval before raising rates.

Good luck.

[Anonymous]

If you get LTCI I wouldn’t get the fed program bcs it seems to reset every time they rebid the program

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have it. It is expensive, and I worry that if I can't keep it up forever, it will all be for naught.

Having said that, I saw it as a way to unburden my child (who might have had to support my expensive care if...like my mother, I was bed-ridden for years before dying.) At least with the Federal plan, they need some type of permission/approval before raising rates.

Good luck.

Exactly the same for us. Expensive but worth the peace-of-mind and did not want to burden our kids. We saw the burden of not having insurance on my mother-in-law, who suffered a debilitating disease for almost a decade. She was so worried about running out of money (not knowing how long she would live) that she did not get anywhere near the right level of care. It was heartbreaking to watch, and she would not accept any help from us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Frankly, I have no idea but I have carried the insurance (version 2.0 I believe) for both DH and me for some time and will continue to do even though we are easily self-insured using your self-insurance calculation of $300,000.

DH and I are ultraconservative when it comes to insurance. For example, we each carry family insurance. IMO dual insuring really only pays off if you are hit with a family hospitalization. We have been and because we ended up being responsible for practically none of the expenses, it has more than paid off.

What is ‘family insurance’?

I meant insurance that is not just for the individual but also for the spouse and children. Not sure if family insurance is the official term for this but since both my DH and I carry this type of insurance, he, our children and I are all dual insured.

[Anonymous]

There have been many threads on this topic, and most of them were filled with people with stories of parents who got huge increases in premiums right as they got to the age when they would actually need the insurance. If you do an online search on this topic, you'll find lots of articles that predict that most of these funds are underfunded, and will be seeing big premium increases as boomers age.

Also, read the details of the policy. Most policies only pay care expenses for a limited amount of time.

I've never met a financial advisor who thinks LTC is a good investment. I'd be suspicious that your advisor is earning a commission.

[Anonymous]

Here are a couple of previous threads:

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/833234.page#15826685

https://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/835219.page#15877530

[Anonymous]

I don't bother with it. It's expensive and they seem to raise premiums frequently and by a shocking amount. Just seems like a bad product that won't be around when you need it because the company behind it went insolvent or you got tired of wasting your money on premiums.