McCortney Family In-Home Care News

Is Long-Term Care Insurance Right for You?

This article is not from the great state of Oklahoma, but the basic discussion applies anywhere.  Here’s the cut and paste version of the highpoints:  (The whole article is worth reading.)

“Long-term care is the biggest threat to elders’ financial well-being,” he said.

Another option is long-term care insurance, which can cover the costs of care for those who lose the ability to perform some of the basic activities of independent living because of health issues.

Long-term care insurance is different from health insurance. The premiums policyholders pay aren’t likely to pay off very soon, and it might not even be needed. Someone who dies suddenly, for example, wouldn’t need it, Murdock said.

He said many people don’t even think about getting it until they realize they need it, and by then it’s often too late.

“Everybody wants to get long-term care insurance after the event that happened that’s going to prevent them from getting long-term care insurance,” he said.


Clearly, every family is different, so the decision on whether or not to purchase long-term care insurance is a personal one.  As quite possibly the only elder care company in our part of Oklahoma that is qualified to provide In-home care to a family member who has a long-term care insurance policy, we can honestly say that these policies are often worth their weight in gold.  We have seen MANY senior adults who have used these policies and the benefits they provide to remain in their homes long past the time they could have without them.

As the article points out, long-term family home care is a huge threat to the financial well-being of a senior adult.  Yes, some people never need it.  At the same time, it seems the more that medicine advances and the longer we live the greater the chance that we are going to need in-home care services.  Diseases like Alzheimer’s, dementia, COPD, and congestive heart failure are all typically slow to progress.  Many people live at home for years with these diseases, but many also need help.  For those people, the fact that they purchased a long-term care insurance policy ends up being one of the best financial decisions of their life.