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[quote=Anonymous]A few thoughts:

1) LTC insurance premiums may be eligible for some tax breaks.  There is an age-based formula for how much can be deducted federally (but won't apply unless you itemize and have at least 7.5% AGI medical expenses).  In Virginia you can get a 15% tax credit on the premiums (again with various caveats).
2) The LTC premiums can be considered HSA eligible expenses based on the age-based formula.  
3) If you want to think about it quantitatively, you can graph the total benefits of the LTC program versus investing the premiums using a reasonable compounding formula.  For instance, our LTC was set to go up 4%/year, and investing can (usually) get a nominal 10%/year, so you can check at various ages the differences between LTCI and self-insuring.  From there you can guesstimate a probabilistic scenario of which is better (e.g. if the total LTCI payout is 10x your self-insurance invested at age 80, do you think you would have a greater or less than 10% chance of using the LTCI?).  However, you have to remember that the chances of using the full payout could be pretty low (e.g. 5 year plan could pay 500k, but if you only use it for 2 years you only get 200k).
4) You may want to consider family history, as a history of dementia or the like could increase the expected usage of the plan.  However, this would probably increase the premium too. 
5) Check carefully the provisions of your plan.  We have the federal LTCI which has gone up in premiums significantly despite being "locked."  In hindsight self-insurance would probably be a much better plan.[/quote]

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