Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We went through this discussion a few years back. Like PP said, LTC policies have changed. We opted to “self insure”. Meaning we invest the money we would have otherwise set aside.

+1 this is where we ended up. It's so hard to know what you might need. My grandmother spent about 5 years in LTC but my MIL, FIL, and Dad all died in the last decade and never spent any time in LTC.

When my father passed away he wasn’t sick long enough trigger the LTC. My mother had just been moved into a qualifying facility, but it’s going to take 6 months before the payments can start. If she spends more than 2 years there she’ll have gotten more back than they put in. She always spent like crazy, so she never would have invested the money that got spent on the LTC plan; my father set it up on autopay. If she had financial discipline she would almost certainly have been better off investing the money and self-insuring.

Anonymous wrote:Is there ANY policy out there that might be worth considering? Nursing home care is approx 10 to 15k a month. I really don't know who can self insure/invest for that. A dementia dx, and you are literally bankrupt.

I will say if you find Medicare coverage to do it, God help you. What you hear about Medicare facilities is true. They are seriously awful, having been through this with my inlaws.

My insurance agent suggested we buy some just to “take the edge off the cost” but that didn’t really seem to make much sense to me. Likewise there are hybrid LTC/life insurance policies but my sense is if you look closely there are better uses of your money.

If you do get one at least get a partnership policy— gives you credit against medicaid asset drawdown if you do run out of insurance

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Shop around, but don't jump on anything until you thought it through.

Insurance by it's very nature is a SCAM. It wouldn't exist if it wasn't a scam. Same as casinos and gambling. They must always come out ahead in profit overall when the books are balanced. Any losses with one claim must be compensated by overcharging everyone else.

Scams. And they have had decades to learn how to scam better.

Look I get what you are saying, especially when it comes to low scale insurance like insuring your cell phone from damage. But the basics of insurance are to transfer low probability, high cost risk (like home burning down) onto a broad array of people, so it's much lower impact per person, and pay them a small premium for it.

It's very sound economically when used to insure against low probability catastrophic losses.

If that were the case, then sure. Hence shop around. Most are not low premium though.

Anonymous wrote:Shop around, but don't jump on anything until you thought it through.

Insurance by it's very nature is a SCAM. It wouldn't exist if it wasn't a scam. Same as casinos and gambling. They must always come out ahead in profit overall when the books are balanced. Any losses with one claim must be compensated by overcharging everyone else.

Scams. And they have had decades to learn how to scam better.

Look I get what you are saying, especially when it comes to low scale insurance like insuring your cell phone from damage. But the basics of insurance are to transfer low probability, high cost risk (like home burning down) onto a broad array of people, so it's much lower impact per person, and pay them a small premium for it.

It's very sound economically when used to insure against low probability catastrophic losses.

Anonymous wrote:Is there ANY policy out there that might be worth considering? Nursing home care is approx 10 to 15k a month. I really don't know who can self insure/invest for that. A dementia dx, and you are literally bankrupt.

I will say if you find Medicare coverage to do it, God help you. What you hear about Medicare facilities is true. They are seriously awful, having been through this with my inlaws.

No, because the companies that did offer good plans took a bath on them and changed them going forward. None are worth the money at this point.

You have enough that when you retire in 15+ years, you will have enough. Just went through this with my parents, and yes, you will have enough.

Shop around, but don't jump on anything until you thought it through.

Insurance by it's very nature is a SCAM. It wouldn't exist if it wasn't a scam. Same as casinos and gambling. They must always come out ahead in profit overall when the books are balanced. Any losses with one claim must be compensated by overcharging everyone else.

Scams. And they have had decades to learn how to scam better.

I bought into the federal LTC plan and it has an unlimited policy. Who knows if it will be there when I need to use it.

We have one investment account that we set up for LTC.

Anonymous wrote:Is there ANY policy out there that might be worth considering? Nursing home care is approx 10 to 15k a month. I really don't know who can self insure/invest for that. A dementia dx, and you are literally bankrupt.

I will say if you find Medicare coverage to do it, God help you. What you hear about Medicare facilities is true. They are seriously awful, having been through this with my inlaws.

you mean medicaid, not medicare. yes, the elderly person had medicare, but that's unrelated to a long term care facility.

Is there ANY policy out there that might be worth considering? Nursing home care is approx 10 to 15k a month. I really don't know who can self insure/invest for that. A dementia dx, and you are literally bankrupt.

I will say if you find Medicare coverage to do it, God help you. What you hear about Medicare facilities is true. They are seriously awful, having been through this with my inlaws.

With one kid getting millions in inheritance I am pretty sure he and his wife will watch you and take you in.

Happened my Uncle. Had a mansion, Mercedes and owned a business. One Grandson moved in the last five years of live from 85-90 and was his 24/7 caretaker and inherited everything!

Anonymous wrote:We went through this discussion a few years back. Like PP said, LTC policies have changed. We opted to “self insure”. Meaning we invest the money we would have otherwise set aside.

+1 this is where we ended up. It's so hard to know what you might need. My grandmother spent about 5 years in LTC but my MIL, FIL, and Dad all died in the last decade and never spent any time in LTC.

We went through this discussion a few years back. Like PP said, LTC policies have changed. We opted to “self insure”. Meaning we invest the money we would have otherwise set aside.

LTC policies are not what they used to be and generally aren’t worth it these days.

DH and I are debating whether to get long-term care. We are both 47 and financially comfortable by normal standards, but probably not by DCUM standards. 450 HHI, $2 million across our 401ks (continue to max out our contributions to it), 10 more years on the mortgage for our house, which is worth about $1.3 million. Husband is a lifelong fed so he'll get the fed pension as well. We have one middle-school child and a 529 for him with about 100k in it. We've been thinking about whether to get long-term care insurance, because my father in law just went into assisted living and he has a policy that has been very helpful. We're both pretty healthy and plan to work until we're around 62. Not sure if it's worth it to get the policy now, or to just invest the money and self-insure.