Your options range from conventional coverage to tapping your life insurance benefits.
YOU’VE HEARD IT BEFORE:
Long-term-care costs can shatter your retirement nest egg. The average cost of a private room in a nursing home is more than $100,000 per year, and the average amount of time people need some kind of long-term care is about three years.
But there are crucial nuances in real life. A frequently cited statistic says that if you’re 65 years old, there’s a 70% chance you’ll need long-term-care services during your lifetime— but that includes unpaid care by family. Plus, you may need care for only a few weeks or months.
A study by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services projected that 48% of people turning 65 between 2015 and 2019 won’t need any paid care. But more than one-fourth will need more than $100,000 of care, and 15% will require care that costs more than $250,000. The bill could top $500,000 over five years for someone with dementia in a memory-care unit in a nursing home.
“Insurance would never have been invented if everybody were average,” says Claude Thau, an actuary and long-term-care consultant in Overland Park, Kan.
That’s why it’s important to assess the risks, says Jean Young of the Vanguard Center for Investor Research and co-author of a study analyzing health care costs in retirement. The study concludes, “Even if the probability of incurring expensive care is relatively low, the number is at a magnitude that is hard to ignore.”
Financial planners tend to start talking about longterm-care costs when their clients’ financial focus shifts from raising kids to envisioning retirement. Many people in their fifties and sixties have seen how much long-term care has cost their parents and want to protect some of their savings if they end up needing care themselves.
PERSONALIZE THE RISK
This story is from the March 2019 edition of Kiplinger's Personal Finance.
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This story is from the March 2019 edition of Kiplinger's Personal Finance.
Start your 7-day Magzter GOLD free trial to access thousands of curated premium stories, and 8,500+ magazines and newspapers.
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